With the Big Green Teams
DAVE GAVITT '59, Dartmouth's new head basketball coach, sat down in a nearly bare office in the Davis Varsity House one day last month, chewed thoughtfully on a pencil, and took stock of Dartmouth's basketball situation.
It had been one of those weeks—"like having a flat tire on a country road and then discovering your spare is flat," the former Dartmouth star said. A near win, a record defeat and, finally, the first Ivy League victory since March 3, 1965. And all in the space of 96 hours.
The near win was the 56-55 loss to the University of Pennsylvania, the record defeat was all 6-42 drubbing by Princeton, and the first victory was a 67-63 win over Harvard.
Gavitt had taken over the varsity after Coach Doggie Julian suffered a stroke December 28 at Rochester, N. Y., during the Kodak Classic, Basketball Tournament. He had returned to Hanover last summer, after four years as assistant basketball coach at Providence College. His assignment was to coach the freshman team this year and then next year to take over the head job from his former coach.
But "next season" was suddenly "now," and while the immediate outlook was grim, Gavitt said, it was not as grim as the immediate past.
Dartmouth had entered the new year and regular Ivy League competition with five wins and two losses. Gavitt's coaching debut came January 6 against Cornell at Ithaca, followed by Columbia in New York City the next night.
"We lost both games, as you know," Gavitt said, "but there was something there in that Cornell game that has not been present in Dartmouth's Ivy games for a long time. That is, we almost won."
"Almost won" is a term that normally has limited interest to coaches, but this season it strikes a chord of excitement with Gavitt.
"On any given night, with everything falling into place and held there with good luck, our team can grab hold and give any team a hard time. I saw that in the way our boys took on Cornell, Penn and Harvard, and that hasn't happened in Dartmouth Ivy play for five years," he said.
The Dartmouth basketball record in league play for the last five years, not including this season, is 7 wins and 63 losses, and for the last three seasons, again not including 1966-67, the record is one win against 41 losses.
But against Cornell, a team that defeated nationally ranked Kentucky, there was a flickering glimpse of the comeback trail. Dartmouth led 29-28 at halftime and enjoyed as much as a 10-point lead at times. The final 69-57 score came only after Cornell's rebounding and speed took the measure of fine performances by the entire Dartmouth squad.
Things were different, however, when Princeton, also sporting a national ranking, came to Hanover on January 14. Observers were hard put to remember when Dartmouth looked worse. Halftime score was 48-17, and not until the figures stood at 81-32 some ten minutes into the second half did Princeton coach Bill van Kreda Kolff remove his regulars.
That was a Saturday. On the third day after that came the victory over Harvard, and the words "risen again" were heard more than once. Harvard was a pretty luckless team itself, but it was an Ivy League team and Dartmouth had not defeated one since its 84-70 win
over Brown two seasons ago. "Things are bad," Gavitt said. "There is no point in ignoring that. They are really bad and not likely to improve overnight." However, he pointed out, a threshold may have been crossed.
"We beat Vermont, Williams, Brandeis, M.I.T. and Rochester before league play started," he said. "Normally that is not regarded as any great accomplishment, but when you consider that in the last few seasons we haven't even been winning those kinds of games, you realize that maybe we have started back."
The rest of the season still could be long and dark, but one thing appeared certain: Dartmouth basketball was on the way to becoming respectable again. "The boys are getting out of the habit of losing," Gavitt said.
