BASKETBALL

Last spring, about the time that Dartmouth's basketball coaching staff was undergoing revision, Joe Vancisin asked an observer, "Are they going to move that young assistant up to the head job?"

The reply was, "Probably." And that's what happened. "Darn," sard Vancisin, "that's going to make them tough."

Vancisin, who played on Dartmouth's NCAA basketball runnerup team in 1944 and who has been coaching the game at Yale since 1956, knew what he was talking about.

Things haven't gone well for Tom O'Connor this winter. His team has won only four games and lost 15 with seven left to play at this point. One of those wins, however, came at Vancisin's expense and what makes it interesting is that O'Connor used one of Vancisin's favorite weapons to carve Dartmouth's 83-69 success over the Elis.

The shuffle offense has been a Vancisin trademark for more than a decade. Through this season, O'Connor has tried a number of offensive schemes in an attempt to generate some scoring punch. Without an inside game to speak of, nothing has worked with much success.

But, against Yale, the shuffle worked to near-perfection for the Green. Of course, Dartmouth's 47 per cent shooting effort from the floor was 10 per cent better than the season's shooting average and that helped, too.

"We finally put a game together," said O'Connor who has tasted the greatest frustration of his relatively young career as a player and coach.

Yale came to Alumni Gym on the heels of a tough three-point loss to Harvard. They didn't expect to run into much trouble from the struggling Green.

When James Brown made his first five shots and when Dartmouth shot 64 per cent in the first half and built a 47-29 lead, it was apparent that it was not Yale's night.

Brown, who still is averaging over 21 points per game, had 31 against Yale. He had scored 26 the night before when Dartmouth was unable to hold off Brown's sophomores and fell, 61-58.

Those two games illustrate how O'Connor has made the most of a marginal situation this winter. With Brown providing steady leadership on the court, O'Connor has kept morale intact through a 13-game losing streak. He's juggled his lineup and in the late going has turned to a relatively small array of Brown, guard Bill Raynor, sophomore Dan McKay, senior Robin Derry (who missed four games with a virus but still is the leading rebounder) and either Jim Fleischer, Gene Matthews or George Riley as the other front court operative.

Since the last writing, the Green has dropped a pair of close duels to Harvard, another tight one at Boston University (7268) plus not-so-close games at Connecticut, St. John's and Columbia.

The losing streak ended with a 75-73 overtime win at Cornell as Brown (22), sophomore Bob Calcaterra (19) and Raynor (18) provided the impetus and McKay, a classic scrapper, controlled the play.

After trimming Yale, the Green visited Harvard and used a gutty defensive effort to force Harvard into 33 turnovers (that is, losing the ball without getting a shot). Raynor had a stellar night, scoring 33 points, but Dartmouth was conspicuously weak on the backboards and this factor caused a pair of 12-point leads to disappear. Harvard held a 54-21 edge in rebounding and used this strength to salvage a 72-68 victory.

"These kids deserved a better fate," said O'Connor after the disappointment at Cambridge. "We simply had no one who could cope with their inside game."

That's the way it's been all season.

Freshman basketball captain Jim Beattiefrom Portland, Me., drives for goal in winover the Harvard freshmen.