Varsity Basketball Opens Ivy Season Against Scrappy Columbia, Tall Cornell

Harvard's aspirations for a good Ivy League basketball season may well depend on the quintet's performances tonight and tomorrow.

The Crimson opens its league schedule against Columbia tonight at 3 p.m. in the IAB, and hosts Cornell tomorrow. The Lions and the Big Red are the teams vying with Harvard for first division berths in the League race behind powerhouses Princeton and Penn.

Columbia: A Threat

Columbia has compiled a lacklustre 2-6 season record, but Harvard should not be lulled into complacency by that mark. The Lions have a reasonably good team, and on the basis of comparative scores hold a slight edge over the Crimson. (Fordham beat Harvard by seven points and Columbia by five.)

The Lions' top player is 6-1 forward Neil Fraber, a second team All-Ivy selection last season; he is averaging 19.3 points per game. Ken Benoit (11.0 per game) and Stan Felsinger (17.4) are a good pair of guards. The Lions lack height; 6-4 Mike Griffin and 6-5 Art Klink are the only big men on their starting five.

By turning in an average performance tonight, the Crimson should win by five to ten points. Cornell will pose a far sterner test.

Cornell: Balance

Cornell possesses probably the best-balanced team in the League. Seven members of the squad are averaging eight points per game or better. The leading scorer is Bob Deluca, a guard, with 14.6 points per game. And the Big Red is big, with 6-7 Steve Cram, 6-6 Jim Maglisceau, 6-5 Garry Munson, and 6-5 Marv Van Loeuwen.

Cornell has lost only twice in six games this season, 67-65 to Colorado State and 75-63 to Connecticut, one of the best teams in the East. Harvard lost to UConn by 15 points last month.

The Red beat Columbia by a surprisingly close 79-73 margin in December, blowing an 18-point lead in the second half.

Cornell will be an exceptionally tough foe for the Crimson, since they have the two things Harvard doesn't: depth and height. Merle McClung and Barry Williams can certainly hold their own on rebounding; but in that second half of their second game in two nights, the Crimson starting five is going to be mighty weary.

Unless a few nimble seven-footers sprout out of the floor of the IAB over-night, the Crimson will have to make the best possible use of its greatest asset--good shooting--to beat Cornell. In nine games this season the starting five plus leading reserves John Scott and Bill Fegley have sunk an incredible 49 per cent of their shots.