Cagers Face Cornell, Lions This Weekend

On a weekend one month ago the varsity basketball team played Columbia and Cornell in Cambridge. Sports analysts predicted a win over weak Columbia and a loss to Cornell, a strong contender for the first division. Naturally, Ivy League basketball being what it is--or isn't, Columbia dealt the varsity a humiliating 51-44 defeat while the Crimson upset Cornell 59-42.

This weekend, the varsity will take to the road and again face both New York schools, and once again, the predictions are the same. Friday night the varsity will face Cornell and take on Columbia Saturday.

Coach Floyd Wilson will send his usual starters against both clubs. Forward Denny Lynch, the team's leading scorer, has boosted his career total to 638 and needs only 31 points to put him in tenth place among Harvard's all time leading scorers. In the other forward position, Len Strauss had the best night of his varsity career against Brown last Friday with 17 points.

Harvard and Cornell are tied for third place in the Ivy League, and both teams need this victory to stay at least nominally in contention for the Ivy title. On a more serious note, a first division finish for Harvard may well hang in the balance.

After its bad showing against Harvard last month, the Big Red has come back strong defeating both Penn and Princeton and unlike Harvard, is a real title contender. In addition, Wilson feels that Cornell "will be better prepared for us mentally this time. We caught them by surprise the last time."

The Cornell squad boasts two of the League's ten leading scorers in guard Jerry Szachara and center Jerry Krumbein. Szachara has averaged 18.8 points per game in League play and is the Big Red's big gun. Last month when Harvard beat Cornell, he and his gang sank only a remarkably poor 27 per cent of their shots.

Columbia, the unanimous pre-season pick for the Ivy basement, may be out-bid for last place honors by Dartmouth and be forced to settle for a seventh place finish. The Crimson will try to give them a friendly assist toward their last-place goal Saturday night.

Harvard probably played its worst game of the season when it bowed to the Lions a month ago. Sinking a pathetic 17 of 62 field goal attempts, the Crimson still managed to stay in the game until the final minute of play when they blew several scoring opportunities and the victory.