BASKETBALL
Dartmouth 48, Cornell 47. After this Cornell game, they carried Captain Emil Hudak off the court, thereby varying the pleasant custom inaugurated this fall after another Cornell game. With the clock showing no time at all to play, Hudak had just cut loose with an overhand heave from the middle of the court which followed a flat course like a baseball and swished through the nets, thereby giving Dartmouth a victory over another heavily favored Cornell team. Up to the last hysterical two minutes, the game had been a close but rather dull affair, with both teams missing frequently but with Dartmouth making more of its shots than Cornell. The Green boys were kept in the game almost wholly by Captain Hudak and sophomore Bill Biggs, with the former scoring 17 points and the latter 14, for 31 of the Indian's 48 points between them. Biggs again served notice that he will be one of the brightest of all Dartmouth luminaries, with a jumping, one-handed push shot that is almost impossible to stop.
But the glory of this game quite properly belongs to Captain Hudak. With two minutes to go, Cornell led 45-43 and attempted to freeze the ball. Dartmouth then stole the ball and Len Hedberg made good on a free throw, after Cornell had done likewise. With 40 seconds to go, Hudak evened the count at 46-46 with a long set shot. Then with only five seconds to go, Cornell scored another free throw, making the score 47-46 in their favor. With time running out, Emil came through with the shot that will live in history as "Hudak's heave." It didn't look as if this desperation heave could possibly go in. But it did. And there was the ball game.
We wish we could continue this summary in the same heroic vein, but journalistic candor compels us to report that the team looked anything but heroic on their abbreviated Christmas trip. They opened their travels in auspicious fashion by soundly defeating Rochester by a 62-53 count. Following that, the team journeyed to Pittsburgh, where they were roundly pasted by powerful Duquesne by the score of 79-51, with Bill Biggs leading the Dartmouth scoring with 13 points. Then Coach Lampe's charges descended on the metropolis and rashly engaged New York University in Madison Square Garden. Awed by the size of the gathering and overcome with shyness at the exotic surroundings of Eighth Avenue, the Green really choked up and went down to a horrendous defeat by the score of 87-39. To give you a rough idea, Dartmouth did not score from the floor until 13 minutes of the game had gone by, after which they managed to tally only in very meager amounts, while the home team was amassing its 87 points'". This was one everybody would like to forget.
As we write this, however, Dartmouth is in the happy position of sharing the Ivy League leadership with Columbia, each with one victory and no defeats. As noted above, the lone League encounter for the Green culminated in Emil's miracle, but the boys cannot count on a repetition of such histrionics in the future. The League is apparently rather evenly balanced this year, with no particular standout aggregation, so that the ultimate winner will probably be a team that has lost three or four games. If Coach Lampe's sophomores catch fire, therefore, they should win their share of games in the all-important League competition. At least we can dream, can't we?
GOOD NOW BUT BETTER IN THE FUTURE: Promising sophomore talent on the varsity basketball squad this season includes (1 to r) Dick Brown, Dick O'Neill, Roger Pierce, John McDonald, Kent Calhoun, and Bill Briggs. Dartmouth's performance in the E.I.L. race depends pretty much on how they come through.
THE WINNING BASKET, contributed from midcourt by Captain Emil Hudak in the final second, sent Big Green fans away from the Cornell game wondering if they had really seen what they saw.
