Basketball
Leading the current winter victory parade is the Big Green basketball team which currently boasts a 13-1 record. The fast-breaking Indians have won four straight Ivy games and are currently leading the league.
Dartmouth's only loss was a 77-72 defeat at the hands of Holy Cross in the final round of the Christmas tourney in Boston. Prior to that game the Indians had defeated Colgate in the opening round 84-65 and three days earlier had stopped Holy Cross at Worcester 69-64.
The Indians got away to a fine start in January by defeating Yale 82-70 in Hanover, then edging Cornell 63-60 at Ithaca, whomping Columbia 82-60 in New York and defeating Harvard at Cambridge by a 67-64 score. In the last contest before final exams the Indians avenged the previous Holy Cross defeat by winning 84-78 as they led all the way.
Coach Doggie Julian is elated with the results to date, but a little concerned at the closeness of some of the Ivy League games. Dartmouth to date has seemed to play just hard enough to win, and in several games has had to "freeze" the ball in the last minutes of play to stave off opposition rallies.
Forward Rudy LaRusso leads the Big Green scorers, averaging just over 16 points per game; while the first team guards, Chuck Kaufman and Walt Sosnowski, follow with 13.3 and 11.9 averages. Center Tom Aley is the only other player in double figures, averaging just over ten points for the fourteen games played thus far. Forwards Gary Vandeweghe and Dave Carruthers along with veteran guard Dave Gavitt are averaging between five and eight points per game, with the rest of the team under five. The team as a whole is shooting at a very fine 408 percentage in field goals and averaging .650 in the free throw department.
With ten more games on the schedule - all against Ivy opponents - the Big Green will have to work hard to hold its league lead. At present it seems certain that the Indians will lose some of these contests, but if they continue to develop as they have during the past month, they should repeat their Ivy League championship of 1956 and win a well-deserved berth in the NCAA playoffs.
