Another month rolls around and still Dolly Stark's amazing Green basketball players are just about the best in the East as well as sitting undefeated on top of the Eastern Intercollegiate League standings.
It looks now as though Dartmouth were in for a real renaissance of basketball, although the teams of the past few years have all clung to high standards. But where in the past the attack sagged down here and there and the varsity men were inconsistent in places, the 1932 edition keeps rolling along with such a changing personnel that the squad is sensational.
There is no such thing this year as "the Dartmouth five." Such a team would be erroneous, for we might well say "the Dartmouth nine" and in all seriousness apply that term to the basketball team.
There is something inspirational in watching a great basketball game and when the Booth-less Blue of Yale came to Hanover for the Carnival game it had all the color of a traditional contest. Before a Carnival crowd of over 2000 the Dartmouth team took the floor against a team which had held Dartmouth to a 21-20 score down in New Haven.
It took a typical second-half surge to down this Yale team, and the final score was 37-24 which left no doubts as to the superiority of the Big Green. The opening half was as close as could be expected, for Dolly Stark started his "heavy duty team" composed of Wild Bill McCall, George Stangle, Harold Mackey, Irving Kramer and Henry Kraszewski.
Dartmouth trailed at the half by an 11-8 score with not many substitutes being used. Then Stark's master strategy came to the fore, and as in the game with Princeton, Jake Edwards ran away with the show in the second half.
But in this game Edwards had to share top honors, for it was a veteran player who has not been used extensively this year who stole the top scoring honors of the evening. Ben Burch, playing in the second half, tossed six baskets from the floor and one foul to score 13 points which were very vital in the final standing.
Dartmouth started the game slowly with Yale holding a slim lead throughout the first half. Kramer's five points represented the Green's total for nearly the whole period until Harold Mackey sunk four points as the half closed.
With Burch and Edwards acting their roles of shock players, the Dartmouth lead jumped to 14-11 in the second half and the Green was never headed for the rest of the game.
Sitting on top of the League, the Dartmouth team also held an enviable position in the East and the Army game loomed as the real test of strength outside league circles. The cadet's record of eight wins and only two losses stamped them as a powerful outfit, and they had two brilliant football players, Ray Stecker and Ed Herb, as shining lights.
Dolly Stark again showed the versatility of this squad by the opening lineup which took the floor. Harold Mackey was sick and could not play, so Stark started George Goss, a fellow who has played hardly any basketball this year. This tall, rangy lad from White Plains, who was the regular center on last year's freshman team, proved a welcome addition to the ever increasing ranks of sophomores who have made good on the varsity this winter.
Another change saw our old friend and veteran Jack Smart at one of the forward positions. And to the amazement of everyone this heavy duty crowd battled the Army from the start, and without the aid of either Edwards or Bureh, ran up a formidable lead on the cadets and the Green was never headed, except for the opening few minutes of the game.
Little Henry Kraszewski came into his own in this game, and the one player on the team who has color was a constant show. Kraszewski is a born showman and yet a good team man, a combination which is so rare these days, where individualists are numerous. Kraszewski scored nine points, to lead Edwards by a single basket for evening's honors, although Edwards performed for only a section of the game.
Due to the large. numbers of capable players on the team, Dolly Stark can afford to try all sorts of strategy in these games. So far Jake Edwards, the most brilliant player of all, has been doing an Albie Booth in every game. He has not started a League game, but has been held out until the middle of the opening period.
The most valuable player on the Dartmouth team is without a doubt Irving Kramer. His work in guarding Ray Stecker of the Army was the highlight of that game, and the fleet Army forward scored only two baskets all night, both of these coming when Kramer was involved in a jump ball play with another Army man and could not follow Stecker.
Dartmouth now faces six League games in a row and by the time this article is in your hands the story will be just about over. Cornell and Columbia, two teams that Dart- mouth has not met at this writing, have both been going well and it is natural to suppose that the hardest opposition will be dealt out by these two. Pennsylvania and Princeton are each listed for a game apiece, teams that Dartmouth has already defeated.