Cagers Meet Rutgers In Xmas Trip Tune-up

The Harvard basketball team, confident that its continuing progress will produce a victory soon, seeks to break a four-game losing streak against a highly-regarded Rutgers team tonight at the IAB. Game time in this holiday special is 7 p.m., with a JV game preceding at 5 p.m.

Earlier this week, Rutgers surprised most basketball followers by edging Princeton 61-60 at Princeton for its fifth win in six games.

Rutgers's biggest advantage is probably experience--four starters are seniors, including the leading scorer, a 6-7 pivotman named Bob Greacen. Harvard coach Bob Harrison's scouting reports indicate that the Knights make few mistakes and play well together as a team.

Unbalanced

They do have weaknesses, however. Neither their height nor their scoring is well-balanced and Harrison plans to take full advantage of those weaknesses, if he can. Greacen and another 6-7 forward, Doug Brittelle, do most of the rebounding; with guard Dick Steward, they have accounted for all but eight of the Knights's per game average of 77 points.

Greacen leads with 25.3--he got 40 in Rutgers' only loss, by 17 to Columbia--while Steward has 18.8 and Brittelle 14.4.

Most coaches, when faced with an unbalanced attack, will take their chances on letting the poor scorers shoot and try to concentrate on the big threats, keeping them away from the ball. Harrison isn't talking

The latest scoring figures show sophomore Dale Dover leading the Harvard attack with 22 points per game. Ernie Hardy, Bob Kanuth and Bob Johnson are far behind, all three averaging slightly better than eight and one-half a game.

Hardy, helped by an amazing 19-rebound performance against Springfield, leads in rebounds--32, and Kanuth has 28.

California Trip

After the Rutgers game, Harvard will begin to get ready for its Christmas tournament, a two-night stand at the University of California at Santa Barbara, December 27 and 28. Depending on the draw. Harvard will play one night against Santa Barbara or Texas Christian University--the defending Southwest Conference champion -- or Fordham -- which has lost only to Columbia, by nine points.

The winners and the losers will meet the next night for first and third places. Harvard then goes to San Jose State on the 30th and then meets still another national power, the University of San Francisco, January 2.