Sport: Basketball: Midseason

College basketball produces no national champion. A winter sport which in some parts of the U. S. amounts to a seasonal hysteria, it is played almost entirely within regional leagues. The argument of each league that it has the best team in the land is more footless than most such controversies, since the strongest teams play on courts of different sizes under rules differently interpreted.

Bred on small gymnasium courts, Eastern teams play a cunning, fast game, usually with spontaneous maneuvers. The larger Western courts develop long passers, elaborate strategies. Midwest and Pacific Coast play a hard-hitting game. Referees there are free-&-easy in interpreting the rule against blocking, thus favoring the offense. In New England the blocking rule is severely enforced. To a lesser degree the same is true in East, South and Northwest. Even without hope of recognized national supremacy, each league last week had a fair idea of what teams would be in the top flight for the final play-offs next month. Midwest. Whether or not they offer the best basketball in the U. S., Midwest games stir up most excitement and draw biggest crowds. Farmers from miles around drove into Lafayette, Ind. for last week’s game between Iowa and Purdue. It was not a crucial game, since little less than a miracle could stop Purdue, which has passed the toughest part of its schedule, from winning the Big Ten Championship. Its team, about the same as last year’s, has five scoring players, all from Indiana — a state so basketball-mad that business practically stands still during the finals of the annual tournament of 800 high schools. The crack shot is Norman Cottom, a sandy-haired forward who has scored 63 points in six games and bids strong to finish as high scorer of the Conference. Best player, by a shade, and the steadying influence of the team is his running mate, Ray Eddy. Purdue does not worry much if its opponents make points, so long as they do not make too many. Hence, the Purdue style is for the whole team to break fast, rush down the floor at once and shoot. Usually the defense takes care of itself. Last week it failed for the first time in a Conference game this season when Iowa won, 38-to-36. Then Iowa turned around and inexplicably lost (35-to-29) to Northwestern which, weakened by graduation, is no more than a fair team.

These doings focused attention on Iowa’s Coach Rolland (“Rollie”) Williams who inherited the job of Sam Barry, now coach of Southern California. At Wisconsin Williams was a nine-letter winner, a fearless halfback, a member of the 1923 basketball team which some enthusiasts still rate the best of all time. Expert on defense, he scored a goal so rarely that, when he did, his teammates would double up with laughter. When “Rollie” Williams went to Iowa as assistant, he sorely upset Wisconsin’s famed eccentric coach, Dr. Walter E. (“Little Doctor”) Meanwell. Dr. Meanwell always suspected Iowa’s Coach Barry, who came from Madison, Wis., of trafficking with spies on Wisconsin strategies. When Williams joined the Barry camp, Dr. Meanwell was convinced of the worst. But this season, when Dr. Meanwell was subjected to hot alumni fire for his team’s poor showing, loyal “Rollie” Williams wrote the Press in defense of his oldtime teacher.

The “Little Doctor” had his innings last week when Wisconsin trounced Ohio 42-to-23 and, before a crowd of 12,500, upset the dark horse of the Conference, Minnesota, 31-to-30. Minnesota has a 19-year-old centre named Gordon Norman who stands 6 ft. 4 in., is still growing. Popping one-handed shots over his head from the free-throw line, he has piled up 81 points in nine games, helped his team from a slow start up to second place, whence it slipped last week to fourth.

In the “Big Six” Kansas, playing a deliberate, conservative style, wedged into a tie for first place with Oklahoma by beating the latter last week, 22-to-16.

Notre Dame, coached by famed George (“Doc”) Keogan, belongs to no conference, barnstorms the country knocking off conference top-notchers. Its winning streak of 22 games was broken by Pitt this season. When Notre Dame plays, everybody watches Ed (‘”Moose”) Krause who, besides being a crack football tackle, is one of the flashiest basketball centres in the U. S. He shoots one-handed, pops them in from 15 or 20 ft. With two Pitt men covering him throughout the game, he scored 10 points.

Metropolitan. Most basketball fans would like to see a game between Notre Dame and College of the City of New York, often called the two best teams in the U. S. Like Notre Dame, City College belongs to no conference, beats nearly every team it meets. For the last three years it has lost only two games out of 41, none so far this season. Also like Notre Dame, it has a whirlwind centre, temperamental Capt. Moe Goldman who, in a furious game with Temple, was knocked unconscious in the first half, returned in the second to score the eleven points which won the game. Also like Notre Dame, City College has in Nat Holman a remarkable coach. In 15 years Holman’s teams at C. C. N. Y. have won 173 games, lost 41. Born and bred on Manhattan’s East Side, Nat Holman learned basketball where many another crack Jewish player started, in a settlement-house gymnasium. While studying at C. C. N. Y. he did not play on the college team, but turned professional, signed in 1920 with a team called “The Original Celtics.” Holman played with the Celtics for eight years, during which they won an average of 120 out of 130 games a year, never lost a series, finally broke up for lack of opponents. Softspoken, sleek-haired, he coaches smooth and deceptive team play, foxy shifts from man-to-man to zone defenses. In spare time he studies sculpture, has made three figures. Says he: “I mold my players just like I mold my clay.” East. In 1908 Harvard quit the Eastern Intercollegiate League in a huff. This season it returned, and so far has lost every conference game played. Princeton, an early favorite, slumped after the Christmas holidays. Most of its first-stringers are seniors playing their third season and apparently bored with the game. Tied for first place are Penn and Yale, last year’s champion. South. From Kansas, where lives the inventor of basketball, Dr. James A. Naismith, went jovial, jowled Adolph Rupp to teach the University of Kentucky boys how to play. He taught them so well that in three years they won 64 out of 72 games, and last year the Southeastern Conference. Last week, undefeated for the season, his team moved toward another championship by beating Alabama 26-to-21. In the Southwest, Texas Christian boasts: 1) League leadership; 2) a forward named Richard Allison, 6 ft. 5 in., 200 lb., who has scored 86 points this season. Rocky Mountain. Even in this single league basketball styles vary. The western division (Utah and Montana) plays a slambang, helter-skelter game resulting in high scores. The eastern (Colorado, Wyoming) tends toward conservatism and tight defense. W’yoming leads the league undefeated. Wyoming’s ace is a tall, blond, left-handed forward named Les Witte, brother of Coach Willard (“Dutch”) Witte. In a double-header last week against Colorado College he scored 17 points in each game, brought his season total to 113, his four-year total close to 1,000. Pacific Coast. California and Washington lead their respective divisions of the conference, but Southern California provides more entertainment. Southern California’s waterboy is none other than Irvine (“Cotton”) Warburton, phenomenal little quarterback of the football team. Besides tending the bucket, sponging the faces of sweaty players, he serves as a sort of assistant to Coach Justin (“Sam”) Barry, lately of Iowa. One of Coach Barry’s stratagems is to have his guards bark like seals, in an effort to disconcert the opposing forwards. Also, he received embarrassing publicity last month when two Iowa undergraduates precipitately quit school, beat their way to Los Angeles, showed up at the U. S. C. campus ready and eager to play basketball.

Last week U. S. C. and California played a doubleheader, split even.