Basketball, Hockey Squads Face Crucial Clashes During Weekend

With scarcely a pause for breath, the personnel of four varsity squads are finishing the frenzy of exam period and preparing for potentially crucial contests with Ivy opponents this weekend. The basketball team begins the action against Brown on Friday night at the I.A.B. On Saturday, the swimming team welcomes Cornell to Cambridge while the hockey team travels to Cornell, and the wrestling team to Columbia.

Of the four squads, the swimmers will probably have the easiest time of it. The meet against Cornell should be a straightforward victory, extending the Crimson's string of consecutive wins to fifteen. Despite the protestations of coach Bill Brooks that "we take each one as it comes along," the swimming team regards the Cornell meet as a warmup for the crucial clash with powerful Princeton.

At least one surprise awaits the hardy stragglers staying in Cambridge between semesters: there is a cantilevered three-meter diving board, newly installed, which will be used for the first time in the Big Red meet.

Quintet Batties Bruins

The future of the basketball team seems less certain. Floyd Wilson's quintet meets Brown, but although the Bruins have an unimpressive 0-4 record and seem hapless as ever, they cannot be taken lightly.

"They've been playing the top teams in the League so far," says Wilson, "and they are a lot better than the record indicates." Last Saturday, Brown toppled Northeastern 53-46.

A win over the Bruins would give Harvard a 4-1 Ivy record, and a solid chance for a first division berth. "It's a game we almost have to win," Wilson feels. "In a situation like ours, we can't afford to let a home game get away from us."

After its 17-day layoff, the hockey team meets Cornell on Ithaca ice. Cornell currently leads the League with a 3-1 record; Harvard is second with a 2-0-1 record.

Hockey Coach Cooney Weiland considers the game one of the key clashes in the title fight. "They're tough on their home ice," he points out, and he has reason to think so--last season, though the Crimson dumped Cornell 5-1 in an early encounter, the Big Red came back to give the sextet their only League defeat, a 2-1 upset at Ithaca.

Earlier this year, Harvard best Cornell 8-1, but as Weiland says, "that doesn't mean anything right now." Reportedly, Weiland will continue the "experimental" personnel arrangement which worked so successfully in the Crimson's 6-1 victory over Dartmouth before exam period. In the first line, Gene Kinasewich will be replaced by Baldy Smith, in an effort to give the two lines better balance and scoring punch.

Johnston May Play

One question mark in the coming Big Red game in All-American defenseman Dave Johnston, sidelined by mononucleosis for most of January. Johnston has been released from the infirmary, and has been allowed to resume practice this week, but it will probably not be known until Friday whether he will be able to play.

In the final sports action of the weekend, the wrestlers travel to Columbia to meet what coach Bob Pickett considers one of the stronger League entrants. "If we can come up with a victory down there, I think we have a good chance to land in the first division," he says. The grapplers currently have a 0-1 record, the result of a loss to powerful Cornell before exam period.