New Hardcourt Coach Bob Harrison Building a Racehorse-Quick Squad

Game Time: 8 p.m. Saturday at IAB

There will be a radical shift of emphasis in Harvard basketball this winter, but whether new coach Bob Harrison's race-horse style will be anything more than exciting remains to be seen. The Crimson starts the season against Brandeis Saturday.

Brought to Harvard after rebuilding the basketball program at Kenyon College in Ohio, Harrison has been drilling the team hard almost since the beginning of the school year.

He has, of necessity, built his first team around the nucleus of the past few years. The starting lineup in Saturday's home opener against Brandeis will feature faces familiar to Harvard fans, but only the players--not the style--will be recognizable.

His predecessor, Floyd Wilson, preferred to wait for the good shot to open up and was willing to pass the ball around the periphery for minutes at a time if necessary. In contrast, Harrison, a former NBA All-Star, stresses motion towards the ball and towards the basket.

In a scrimmage against a group of graduate students--"The Inceptors"--yesterday, Harrison got the action he desired about midway through the first half. Trailing 22-10, Harvard, sparked by captain Bob Kanuth, still recovering from a hernia operation, and sophomore Jay Noble, connected on break after break, rolling up 40 points in less than 10 minutes to take a 52-40 halftime lead.

After intermission, the Crimson returned the starters to the floor and piled up a 30 point lead within a few minutes. The final score was Harvard 97, Inceptors 76.

On offense, whenever the fast break fails to materialize, Harrison will use a 1-2-2 with sophomore Dale Dover, strong and quick, on the outside point, Ernie Hardy and Bobby Johnson on the wings and Kanuth (or 6-8 sophomore George Yates) and Chris Gallagher under the basket.

The offensive centers around Dover, and, occasionally, Harrison clears a side and sets a pick so Dover can drive one-on-one against his man. He's very hard to stop in that situation. There are one or two potential problems with the set-up: first, unless Hardy and Johnson crash the boards successfully, offensive rebounds will be scarce. Second, none of the three starting outside men has the kind of shooting touch which can break open games and loosen up enemy defenses.

It appears that the bench will be fairly strong. Eric Gustafson, a two-year letter-man, will be Harrison's sixth man; he can fill in at any position and looked especially sharp in yesterday's scrimmage.

Another two-year veteran, Barth Royer hasn't recovered fully from a knee operation over the summer. Harvard could use his shooting eye. Harrison expects 6-10 Paul Waickowski to "win a couple of games" with the big play--a tip in, a rebound, a blocked shot--even though the senior won't play regularly.

Brandeis is pretty much an unknown club. Coached by K.C. Jones, the one-time Celtic great, the Judges are sure to run a lot and play a pressing defense. They have a 6-11 center who developed fast enough last season to spark them to victories in nine of their last 12 games.