Basketball
For the second time in three seasons Dartmouth's basketball team was playing in an NCAA tournament as the winner of the Ivy League title. Two years ago Dartmouth won its opening NCAA game by upsetting a powerful West Virginia team in overtime, but then lost in the second round of play to Temple. This year the Big Green met the University of Connecticut, Yankee Conference champions, in the opening game of a triple-header at Madison Square Garden on March 11. After a slow start, the Indians got moving in the second half to thump Connecticut 75-64. Two Brooklyn lads led Dartmouth to victory, with forward Rudy LaRusso and guard Chuck Kaufman each scoring 24 points. LaRusso played a tremendous game under both boards, while Kaufman's play-making and defensive work were also superb. The Indians had a slim four-point lead, 39-35, at halftime, but pulled away early in the second half as they outscored the UConns 15-4 to pile up a commanding lead. Coach Julian, as usual, went to his bench when he felt it was necessary, and his substitutions, as usual, were both timely and.wise. Center Tom Aley played one of his best games and generally the entire Dartmouth squad was "up" for this important clash.
The Dartmouth players, after a quick shower, watched closely the game that followed, which pitted the nation's top-ranked team. West Virginia, against the Manhattan Jaspers. Despite its No. 1 ranking, the jinx which bumped the Mountaineers out of NCAA play in the opening game for the past three years was just too much and Manhattan upset West Virginia. This meant that Dartmouth would play Manhattan in the second round at Charlotte, North Carolina - for which game the Big Green promptly entrained from New York.
Three days later the Indians and Jaspers clashed at the Charlotte Coliseum. Before a sellout crowd of 11,500, the Big Green played one of their sharpest games as they led Manhattan all the way and rolled to an impressive 79-62 victory. The Indians jumped into an early lead and outscored the Jaspers 27-16 in the first ten minutes of play. Manhattan rallied to reduce the point margin to four, but forward Rudy LaRusso, once again sparking the Big Green offense, tallied seven points to give the Indians a more comfortable margin, and Dartmouth went off at halftime leading 38-27. In the second half, with the offense sparkling and the rebounding going mostly Dartmouth's way, the Indians were in complete control of the game and led at one point by a 20-point margin.
Sophomore guard Chuck Kaufman, whose 18 points in the second half helped crush the Jaspers, was high scorer for both teams with 22 points. The other sophomore guard, Walt Sosnowski, contributed thirteen points as did LaRusso, while Dave Carruthers pushed through twelve. Center Tom Aley and LaRusso were troubled by fouls, but their replacements, Dave Farnsworth and Gary Vandeweghe, did a superlative job with Farnsworth particularly effective under the boards. By winning over Manhattan, Dartmouth got into the NCAA Eastern Regional finals with a strong Temple team which had defeated Maryland 71-67 on the same evening.
The next night (Saturday, March 15) the Dartmouth-Temple game again packed Charlotte's Municipal Coliseum, but the Indians were no match for the nationally ranked Owls and were soundly thumped, 69-50. The Owls, led by their All-American guard, Guy Rodgers, jumped into a 22-10 lead and were never headed. Rodgers' deadly shooting, rebounding and clever playmaking, coupled with the set shots of forward Mel Browdsky, riddled the Indians' zone defense and stopped Dartmouth's attack almost cold. The Indians were also off their usually fast pace. Rudy LaRusso, who was named to both the Ivy League and New England All-Star teams for his regular season's play, was the only effective Dartmouth player. With 19 points he was high for both squads. Temple led 32-22 at halftime. The Indians fought back late in the game to make it 54-45, but then the Owls put on a dazzling burst to reel off fifteen points and pull away to an overwhelming lead.
On the basis of Eastern NCAA Tournament play, Temple's Guy Rodgers was voted the most valuable player, with LaRusso being selected for the Eastern Regional all-tournament team and guard Chuck Kaufman receiving honorable mention.
Prior to the tournament games, the Indians had won the Ivy League title in late February action, defeating Princeton, Pennsylvania and Brown. However, the Big Green also lost to Princeton and Penn during this period and the Ivy race was not settled until the March 1 victory over Penn in Hanover, 72-67. Penn had won the week previous, 87-74. Princeton also was a stumbling block, with the Indians defeating the Tigers on their home court, 77-59, but then losing to them in Hanover, 53-46. Even at season's end the Big Green was still an "on and off" team, playing one night as a talented, fast-moving, sharp-shooting club and the next time as a slow team given to sloppy ball-handling and poor shooting.
The cumulative scoring statistics are about what they've been all season. Rudy LaRusso wound up as Dartmouth's top scorer with just under 15 points per game, with guard Chuck Kaufman hitting at a 13.3 clip and sophomore guard Walt Sosnowski at 11.5. Center Tom Aley had a 10.1 average, while the other member of the starting unit, forward Dave Carruthers, was off his pace this year and ended up with a 6.0 average. Reserve forward Gary Vandeweghe and guard Dave Gavitt also averaged out at six points per game.
Kaufman had the best field-goal percentage (442). LaRusso the most rebounds (448), and reserve forward Hal Douglas the top free-throw average (.853).
The Big Green team over the 24-game schedule had a game average of 74.4 points, with a field-goal percentage of .394 and a free-throw percentage of .646.
In all, there is little doubt that this was Dartmouth's best season on the basketball court since Coach Alvin "Doggie" Julian took over in 1950. Both Julian and the entire team deserve a resounding "Wah Hoo Wah" for their fine performance this winter.
Al Merrill, whose first year as head ski coach was a resounding success, looks on as Dave Harwood, co-captain of the team and winner of Skimeister honors in the NCAA meet, inspects the Walter Prager Trophy, won by Dartmouth as national college ski champs.
