BASKETBALL

If December seemed like an eternity for Grant Standbrook, January is proving to be equally long for basketball coach George Blaney. Since our last visit with you on these pages, there has been little good news to report.

After winning against Vermont and Stetson in the first week of the season, Dartmouth's basketball team lost eight straight games, including four in Ivy League action. Two of the losses have been to teams that are ranked among the four best in the nation — Marquette and Pennsylvania. That's right, Penn is No. 4 at this stage in both national wire service polls.

This is a Dartmouth team that was expected to be much better than has been demonstrated. It's not a bad team, certainly not as bad as the record might indicate. Nor is it nearly as strong as had been anticipated.

The Indians and Harvard were tapped as the teams to challenge Penn's superior force. Both teams are predominantly sophomore units and while Harvard has won both of its meetings with Dartmouth, by scores of 89-78 and 81-75, neither is anywhere near Penn this season. No one is — at least not in the Ivy League.

Blaney is working with good players — not quite great, as many people had predicted. His team has had the misfortune of facing a succession of teams that are also very good. The Indians also have been plagued by a malady not uncommon to young teams — frustrating inconsistency.

In Paul Erland, the junior forward, the Indians have the Ivy League's top scorer — he has averaged 30 points in four Ivy games. Erland is an outstanding shooter but he doesn't have the quickness and overall effectiveness of Penn's Jim Morse or Marquette's Gary Brell, and these are the type of opponent he's had to contend with.

He is averaging 23.5 points in 10 games and is among the nation's leading free throw artists. But he's not enough.

Nor has James Brown, the heralded sophomore guard, been able to provide the necessary impetus. While he has scored over 18 points per game, his shooting percentage from the floor has shown the effects of defensive concentration.

Blaney's biggest chore has been to bring Jim Masker into form. The 6-10 center, who missed the first three games with a knee injury, is playing with an added 25 pounds over his 1969-70 weight (he's around 225 now). The weight increase was planned to give him improved rebounding strength but it's had an adverse effect on his overall mobility.

"Jimmy is a key for us," said Blaney. "His presence should give us the added dimension of an inside game and relieve the defensive pressure that Erland and Brown faced when he wasn't playing."

The guard spot opposite Brown has been unsettled with Blaney working to inject either junior Gary Dicovitsky, senior Jerry O'Brien, or sophomores Doug Bate and Bud Martin into a situation that will best utilize their respective talents.

The schedule, too, has been murderous. Playing before capacity crowds of more than 10,000 at the Milwaukee Arena, the Indians were blitzed by Marquette's mauling defense, 98-55. Texas also won the battle for third place, 85-76. The final stop of the holiday trip was at St. Louis University. The Billikens, much improved over a year ago when they finished fourth in the Vanderbilt tourney (where Dartmouth was second), took a 91-75 verdict that was won primarily on the backboards.

Returning to Alumni Gym, the Indians were indeed flat as Princeton's sophomore guard, Brian Taylor, paced the Tigers to a 78-58 win. Two days later, an Eastern regional television audience saw Penn win, 92-77, with a team that is indeed competitive with the Marquette horde. Then to West Point where the Cadets won, 69-57, behind Doug Clevenger's 37 points. The wrap- up to this point was Harvard's invasion of Hanover and the Crimson came away with a squeaky win despite Erland's 33 points (he had 32 in the first encounter at Cambridge).

It now becomes a scramble for a break-even season. It will be a long but not impossible haul.

Steve Arndt (10) and Dave Walkom (9) in action against New Hampshire in theEC AC Holiday Tournament in Boston. The Wildcats won decisively, 11 to 2.