With the Big Green Teams

IT was January 14 and the wind made the walk through Harvard Square less than comfortable. The guy with the green scarf was returning from lunch with the guy with the crimson scarf. The green scarfed one glanced at a pile of snow beside the sidewalk and spotted a dime.

"How about that," he said, "I never find anything except pennies."

"Maybe you'll be ten times lucky today," said the crimson scarf.

Nearly eight hours later, they sat together in Harvard's Indoor Athletic Building. The green scarf guy was sitting in gloomy silence. The scoreboard read: Harvard 80, Dartmouth 65 and the clock showed 5:37 left to play. The crimson scarf guy was confident.

Seven seconds later, Paul Erland's basket launched a comeback that must rank with the greatest in Dartmouth basketball history. While Harvard tried to hold the ball and stem the Green surge, the lead steadily faded and with 36 seconds left in the game, Erland's twisting layup put Dartmouth ahead, 81-80. The final score was 83-80 as Gary Dicovitsky, the gutsy guard, added two foul shots to cap an 18-0 blitz.

"I looked at the scoreboard and figured there was no way on earth that we could come back," said George Blaney, the first-year coach. "We had played 35 minutes and hadn't looked very good at all."

The fact that Springfield College came to Hanover three nights later and scored a 70-68 upset doesn't really tarnish the fact that things are looking up for Dartmouth's basketball team. In fact, things are progressing on the hockey front, too, but at the moment it appears that Blaney's cagers may be a year or two ahead of Ab Oakes' skaters in returning to positions of prominence.

Dartmouth was no slouch over the holidays. The Indians battled highly regarded Purdue (loser to UCLA for the NCAA championship last season) to a 43-43 standoff four minutes into the second half before the Boilermakers cut loose with 21 straight points (Harvard isn't the only team that knows the feeling) to ultimately lose, 82-58.

Erland had a great pair of games in the Vanderbilt Tournament at Nashville, and the Indians raised many eyebrows when they upset the host Commodores, 83-82, in the opening round. Playing before a hometown crowd, Erland scored 25 points and provided the coup de grace with a 20-foot jump shot that was in the air at the final buzzer and swished cleanly through the nets to hand Vandy its first loss in the seven years it has held the tourney.

It was a great win for the Indians, and Alex Winn, who made the all-tourney team, had a big night with 30 points.

The next night it quickly became apparent that the tournament trophy was not going to leave the Southeastern Conference. Auburn, making 27 of 41 foul shots (while Dartmouth was six for nine), withstood the Indians who came within two points midway in the second half after trailing by 14 at the break, and won, 85-76.

The Indians ended the trip with a split of four games as Erland scored 32 and Masker played a great rebounding game as Memphis State was beaten in double overtime, 77-74. Erland had all his points in regulation time against Memphis. His final basket tied the game, 64-64. Masker had all of Dartmouth's points in the first overtime and in the second overtime it was Dicovitsky, soph John VanKurin, and Captain Greg Pickering who snatched the victory with clutch foul shooting.

The Indians brought a 5-2 record into January and immediately improved that with a 93-66 bombing of Amherst. Winn had 28 that night while Van-Kurin had 18. A sophomore from Lafayette, Ind., VanKurin has been sharp in spots since moving into the starting lineup. He got his chance after coming off the bench to score 20 against Auburn. He gives Dartmouth a good outside scoring threat, but Blaney is still trying to find the right man to direct the attack.

The roughest weekend swing of the entire Ivy League schedule is the trek to Penn and Princeton. It's particularly true this season because both are strong. Penn's rebuilding program is about a year ahead of Dartmouth's and the Quakers came out of their win over the Indians with an 11-1 record (that loss was a three-pointer to Purdue). Dartmouth battled to a 33-33 tie in the late stages of the first half but could never quite overtake the Quakers through the second half in a game that clearly belonged to Penn - but not by 14 points.

For the first time in a decade, Penn and Princeton each sent scouts to Hanover to watch the Amherst game (you can tell the word is getting around). It paid off for Princeton, albeit barely, as the Tigers came back to win on the strength of 19 foul shots without a miss.

Perhaps the most conspicuous development in the games with Penn, Princeton, Harvard, and Springfield is the improvement of Jim Masker. He began to show signs of putting his 6-10 frame to full use against Amherst. Then, at Penn, he scored 15 points. He had 17 at Princeton and 19 against Harvard and in that memorable Cambridge contest he also had 16 rebounds.

Erland, the deadpan performer who is developing a knack for game-winning baskets, averaged 21.8 points after 12 games. Winn, who seems to have overcome the problem of fouling out (he fouled out of six of Dartmouth's first seven contests), had an 18-point mark for 12 games and became the sixth player in Dartmouth basketball history to surpass the 1,000-point career scoring mark with his third basket of the night against Springfield. The career record is 1,206 set by Steve Spahn during 1960-63 and that mark seems destined to disappear into Winn's grasp.

The best way to sum up this picture of improvement is to mention the Dartmouth freshman cagers. The best of this bunch is a six-foot guard from Long Island City, N. Y., named James Brown whose best night in seven that found him averaging over 33 points per game was in the prelim to the varsity's comeback win at Harvard.

Harvard's freshman team is considered the best - or close to it - in the nation this winter. The Crimson frosh won the first meeting with the Little Indians in Hanover, 91-89. Brown scored 43 points that night and in the encore at Cambridge he amassed 52 points as Dartmouth retaliated with a 101-99 victory. That brought the Little Indians' record to 5-1 but Springfield (you might have guessed) caught them on the rebound and came away with a 78-77 upset.

Sophomore Paul Erland (20) is cheered after sinking the winning basket in 83-82win over Vanderbilt. He is flanked by Jerry O'Brien (25) and Gary Dicovitsky (21).