The Christmas Trip
The team lost six straight on the Christmas trip. They saw America first and the coffers of the DCAC were presumably pleasantly swelled in the process. But from the point of view of winning basketball games—and giving the alumni a glimpse of a traditionally great Dartmouth team—the trip was not conspicuously successful. With a key man (Brindley) incapacitated the night before the trip (with a sprained ankle in the Brown game) and with the reserve strength almost completely wiped out by resignations from the squad, the team that hit the road was a mere shadow of former great Dartmouth basketball teams. The record of the trip was as follows:
(1) Holy Cross 45, Dartmouth 34. (2) Manhattan 60, Dartmouth 46. (3) Notre Dame 66, Dartmouth 55. (4) Toledo 66, Dartmouth 50. (5) California 55, Dartmouth 46. (6) California 48, Dartmouth 35.
Since this ill-starred junket will hardly be hot news by the time this department reaches you in the second week in February, we shall be mercifully short. The first contest against Holy Cross in the Boston Garden outlined the shape of things to come. With Brindley hobbling about and jumping off his good leg (he still managed to score 11 points), neither the offense nor the defense of the Green was up to standard. The Crusaders ran up a 28-10 lead at the half and were never headed thereafter. Paul Campbell tied with Brindley for scoring honors for the Green with 11 points. Two nights later, Manhattan took the measure of our heroes before 18,000 cash clients in Madison Square Garden, with Brindley playing only a few minutes of the game. Dartmouth came to life by fits and starts and at one time managed to pull up to within six points of the Jaspers. Captain Chip Coleman, fighting manfully in a lost cause, came through with 11 points from his guard position, while Paul Campbell again led the Green with 12 points from the forward spot.
On December 27, the team met NotreDame in Cleveland and fell by the wayside, 66-55, despite the heroic efforts of Ed Leede, who led the scoring for both teams with 23 points. The absence of big Aud Brindley was especially keenly felt on this occasion, with his substitute playing the whole game and scoring precisely o points. Even on a mediocre night, Brindley is good for 15 points or better, in addition to his play- making and all-around ability. This contest represented the most points the Green managed to amass on any one contest during the trip, although much of the scoring was done against the Irish shock troops. Captain Coleman came through for 16 points and Campbell for 13, but even this was not enough.
Three days later, the Green made a game of it against Toledo for a while; at the half the count was notted at 24-all. In the second stanza, however, the superior reserve strength of the Toledo Rockets made itself felt against a tiring Dartmouth five and the home team coasted to an easy 66-50 victory. Chip Coleman again led the scoring for Dartmouth, with Joe Sullivan and Campbell contributing ten each to another losing cause.
The team then jumped by air to the Pacific Coast, where they met California at Berkeley on January 3 and 4. Brindley's ankle was so bad after the Manhattan game that he did not even leave New York, which meant that Coach Lampe was left with exactly four basketball players (plus six eager but inept performers who went along largely for the ride). These four were Coleman and Sullivan at the guards and Leede and Campbell at the forwards plus a gaping hole at center. In some of the games, Leede was inserted in the vital pivot spot and Joe Sullivan moved up to forward, thus weakening the guard position. So five men played almost the entire time against California (and against practically everybody else on the trip, for that matter) and it just didn't work out. In the first contest at Berkeley, Campbell turned in a 19-point performance which led both teams, but California came through to win handily 55-46. No details are available in this sector on the final game, which is perhaps just as well, because most of the variations have already been rung on the same dismal theme. California took the last one 48-35 and that was that. To complete the ill fortune, the air-minded gladiators were grounded on the coast and had to make the long return jaunt by train, reaching New York just about in time for the Princeton game and without returning to Hanover.
