Basketball
Strong favorites to repeat their Ivy League championship of last year, the Dartmouth basketball team has been rather erratic during the past month. Undefeated in the first four games of the season, the Indians lost to Columbia in New York at the start of the Christmas holidays by a 78-68 score. Then at the Holiday Tournament in the Boston Garden, the Indians were downed by the nation's number one team, North Carolina, by an 89-61 score, and fell before Syracuse on the following night 86-63. In their first January game, however, the Big Green showed its potential by stopping the University of Connecticut, surprise winners of the Orange Bowl Christmas basketball tourney, by an overtime score of 70-67. Three days later the tables were turned as a reputedly weak Holy Cross team edged Dartmouth at Worcester in a double overtime thriller 66-64. Since then the Indians have recovered sufficiently to defeat Spring-field 88-69 and to tie a Dartmouth scoring record by romping to a 93-56 win over Brown in an Ivy contest. This weekend (January 18-19) Dartmouth faces Princeton and Penn on successive nights and these two contests could go a long way in determining Dartmouth's chances in the league. [Princeton won 61-59 in an overtime contest but Dartmouth captured the Penn game 71-44. On December 21 the Green was third in the league (3-2) behind Princeton (5-0) and Columbia (4-1)-]
Coach Doggie Julian is naturally a bit concerned about the erratic play of the team. "We're just not shooting well," says Doggie. "Our defense is pretty good but we are not getting away the shots we should." Another factor has been the play of center Jim Francis and forward Dave Carruthers. Francis, who usually averages over 15 points a game, has been tense in recent outings and his shooting average has fallen to just over ten points. Dave Carruthers, potentially one of the team's top scoring aces, has also been off and his average is just over six points per game. "If Francis and Carruthers begin to play the way they are capable of playing, we should be right up in there for the Ivy title again," Coach Julian admits.
Veteran guard Larry Blades has also been erratic thus far and Coach Julian has moved Captain Ron Judson, who usually plays at forward, into his place at guard along side of Gene Booth. Stepping into Judson's forward post has been sophomore Rudy LaRusso, a talented player. This new combination has worked well to date with victories over Springfield and Brown.
Bench strength also has not come through as expected, although here again in recent games there has been a distinct improvement. Tom Donahoe, Stu Hanson, Hal Douglas, John Jones and Dave Gavitt are all beginning to live up to potential.
Dartmouth, of course, was not expected to win against either North Carolina or Syracuse. Columbia was a disappointing loss, although guard Gene Booth held the Lions scoring ace, Chet Forte, to 19 points and the Lions, playing on their own court, had a sensational night in the field goal department, averaging better than 50% from the floor. Dartmouth led all the way against Holy Cross, but allowed the Crusaders to rally at the end, tried to run with them and lost finally in the second overtime period when the Crusader Captain, George Waddleton, sank a toss.
Dartmouth's individual statistics are, by and large, unimpressive. Captain Ron Judson is tops in scoring with a 16.5-pointsper-game average, followed by center Jim Francis with ten, guard Larry Blades with just over nine and forward Rudy LaRusso with just under nine. Francis, however, has grabbed off a total of 133 rebounds, to rank among the top twenty in the nation in this department, while LaRusso has 117. All told, Dartmouth has some 600 rebounds to only 400 for the opposition, and the Indians as a team rank among the top ten in rebounding. The Dartmouth field goal average is .348 so far, while the free throw percentage is just over .700.
Currently tied for second place in the Ivy League, the Indians hope to improve. As Coach Julian says, "Don't sell the boys short. They're beginning to roll and now we just have to watch out for Columbia and Princeton."
