BASKETBALL
The basketball team is currently suffering from serious malnutrition, growing out of a long string of successive occasions on which they have failed to taste the heady fruits of victory. Starting with the Christmas trip (chronicled immediately below) and running into the first two League encounters, the Green has not tasted victory for 6 games. Opening the season against Columbia on January 10 in their band-box gymnasium, the Green bowed to last year's Ivy League champions by the score of 64-54. In a game dominated by the gigantic Walt Budko of Columbia, Dartmouth was comparatively powerless at the center spot and underneath the basket. Ed Leede inaugurated his personal Ivy League schedule in auspicious fashion by scoring 21 points, with Captain Chip Coleman second with 10 points. Nobody else broke into two figures in the scoring column, however, and Dartmouth thereby went down to its initial League defeat.
The following Monday, the team moved out into the Jersey marshes to engage an institution that has maintained educational facilities in those parts for some time. In losing to Princeton by the score of 55-42, Coach Lampe's charges were even less impressive than against the champion Lions. The Tigers forged into the lead shortly after the opening scuffle and were not headed for the rest of the evening. Dartmouth was seldom closer than 10 or 12 points to the Orange and Black and even the sterling efforts of Paul Campbell with 17 points failed to set the Green on fire. Ed Leede was thoroughly guarded by Princeton's Sella, who at the same time managed to make himself high scorer for Princeton with 15 points. Leede was able to garner only a measly (for him) 8 points and the rest of the team (with the exception of Campbell) couldn't find the range. The boys kept throwing them up toward the basket, but they just wouldn't go in. As we go to press, therefore, Dartmouth is in a position to which she is definitely not accustomed—namely, at the foot of the Ivy League.
The Christmas trip was an unfelicitous excursion, during which the Green invaded the hostile territory of four crack eastern teams and lost to each one of them. The competition of Holy Cross, Temple, Seton Hall, and Manhattan is as good as can be found in these parts, with no easy pickings among them. The fact remains, however, that we dropped them all, by greater or lesser margins, much to the unhappiness of all concerned. In almost every game, the team seemed to play well for most of the contest, only to fall apart for a few minutes and let the opposition run up ten or fifteen points. The offensive efforts of such talented operatives as Leede and Campbell were unable to overcome these recurrent defensive lapses. This may, of course, be merely a euphemistic way of saying the other teams were better. Could be.
In the Boston Garden on December 20, the Green opened the road show with a try at Holy Cross, last year's NCAA champion and managed to stay in the ball game most of the way. Captain Chip Coleman had one of his most productive nights from the floor and led the Dartmouth scoring with 18 points. Ed Leede was close behind with 17 points, but these heroic efforts were unable to withstand the surging Crusaders, who won going away by the score of 75-61.
A week later, Philadelphia's Convention Hall was the scene of another Green defeat, which proved to be the worst of the series. Coach Lampe's charges battled on even terms for 30 minutes with a terrific Temple team that had previously knocked off such a court standout as Kentucky. Then the roof fell in on the Indians and Temple piled up a final score of 73-54 for a decisive victory.
The game against Seton Hall on December 30 illustrates one of the striking characteristics of contemporary basketball. This South Orange institution, which many of you probably have never heard of, is one of the court powerhouses of the east and, along with certain other more or less obscure institutions in Greater New York (and elsewhere), is usually capable of beating the ears off most of the Ivy League teams. Basketball talent is so numerous and widely distributed in large and small institutions .that you can never tell who will come along and knock off a big name team. Seton Hall did just that to Dartmouth, to the surprise of nobody in particular, when they came through with a close victory by the score of 57-52. Paul Campbell was the leading scorer for the Green with 14 markers, with Ed Leede having an unspectacular night with 10 points and Wes Field caging a like number.
On January 3, Dartmouth played a return engagement on the "home" floor of Manhattan College in Madison Square Garden and almost pulled one out of the fire. The Green finally succumbed by the score of 53-50, after putting on what was probably their best effort to date. Joe Sullivan did some heroic work at guard, and the Dartmouth scoring was taken care of by Ed Leede with 14 points, Campbell with 13, and Field with 11. This was close, but not quite close enough.
GOALIE DICK DESMOND THWARTS A TIGER SCORING THREAT as Dartmouth opened the defense of its league title by whipping Princeton, 6-2, in Davis Rink. It was the Green's seventh straight 1947 win.
