Big Green Teams
George Blaney is lobbying to have the time for college basketball games extended to 40 minutes and one second.
Two fateful seconds were all that stood between Dartmouth and a six- game win streak as the Indians headed into the final seven games of the season.
After scrambling through long, long January and battles with the Ivy League's best and the best from a few other areas, too, the Indians got untracked with a 68-65 win over Boston University. Then they dropped tough decisions in well-played games to Holy Cross (81-75), as Paul Erland set a Dartmouth record with 44 points, and to St. John's (66-56).
A nerve-wracking win at Connecticut, 69-62, got things going again but then came the first fateful second.
It was against Brown at Alumni Gym. Dartmouth never trailed in the first 40 minutes but couldn't hold its lead, either. The Bruins tied the game 65-65 in the final seconds and a decisive jump shot by Dartmouth's sophomore guard, Doug Bate, was ruled an instant late.
Brown won the game in overtime, 75-74. The next night, the Indians played like gangbusters and whacked Yale, 88-65, as Erland scored 29 and soph guard James Brown had 24.
Then came a harrowing 78-74 overtime victory at New Hampshire as the Green again couldn't hold onto a lead and had to use some clutch shooting by Erland, Brown, forward Robin Derry and guard Gary Dicovitsky to subdue the pesky Wildcats.
The trip to Cornell was fruitful as Brown sparked an explosion in the final ten minutes of play and pulled Dartmouth from a 52-51 lead to an 83-65 triumph.
Then came the next fateful second. It was at Columbia and it was one of the finest games of the Ivy League season. Erland (25), Brown (24) and center Jim Masker (20) were outstanding in a game of remarkable shooting and sharp play. Twice Dartmouth overcame five- point deficits and took the lead, 83-82, with two minutes to play. Each team then lost the ball twice before Larry Gordon's jump shot put Columbia ahead, 84-83 with 14 seconds to play.
Dartmouth had time for the final shot and Erland took it. It was good but again it was an instant late—for everyone except one of the officials who nearly took victory from the Lions' grasp before reversing his decision after consulting the timer.
Two men have been standouts for the Indians in the quest to achieve a break-even season. Erland is one and Dicovitsky is the other.
Erland averaged over 24 points per game and at this point was on the brink of breaking Steve Spahn's season scoring record of 553 points (Erland had 467 with seven games remaining). He could also come within a whisker of Spahn's career scoring record of 1206 points—with a full year still to play. He also is the Ivy League's leading scorer. While Erland has been scoring, Dicovitsky has been a defensive wizard. Against Brown and Yale he totally handcuffed two of the Ivy's best scorers, Russ Tyler and Jim Morgan. He has become a master at drawing fouls and has proven to be a steady backcourt influence, permitting Brown to think more about scoring—which he's been doing at a rate of 19 per game.
The season has been long but Blaney would feel much better if it had been two seconds longer.
Sophomore Steve Quigley from Marble-head, Mass., has been Dartmouth's topperformer in the distance freestyle.
The Red Cross Blood Bank, using Alumni Hall for the first time, had recordresults with 562 pints contributed by students, faculty, and townspeople. Wood-ward Hall won dorm honors with a 67% turnout, and Alpha Chi Alpha, spurredon, by Paŕick Coghlan '71, student co-chairman of the drive, won both fraternityanl College honors with a turnout of 70%.
