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Guards Seek Scoring Title

Tourney Boasts Four Backcourt Aces

BY DON PIERCE
Special. Correspondent
lr you still believe in position

identification in basketball,
four guards are scheduled to
stage. the finest mass demon-

stration of backline scoring

since the founding of the Big
Seven tournament when. the
eighth annual affair yanks up
the curtain Saturday in Kan-
sas City’s Municipal audito-
rium.

This quartet includes Gene
Stauffer of Kansas State; Fred
Segar, Nebraska; Les Lane,
Oklahoma, and Dutch Van
Cleave, Iowa State. é

All four are riding among
the conference’s pre-tourna-
ment top ten scorers. And at
least one of them should make

Scoring Leaders

Name, Pos., Team G
Born, c, Kansas.. 3
Reiter, c, Missouri 4
Van Cl’vye,g,Ia. St.
Segar,g, Nebraska
Stauffer, g, K, St.
Lane, g, Oklahoma
Johnson, ec, Neb...
Waller, ec, Okla...
Jeangerard,f, Colo.
Prisock, f, K. St.

the stoutest bid for the meet
individual scoring crown since
Nebraska’s Jim Buchanan

 

CUP AD GO
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SABO RO ERAN R IORI OOO INHER

Kansas’ Prolific Pachyderny
Clyde Lovellette, two years
ago.

Of this gang, only Segaf, the
6-4 Cornhusker, finyshed
among: the circuit’s scoring
elite in league play last year,
with a 13.1 average for ninth
position. None craghed the
tournament’s top tem last De-
cember.

Altho the guards fhave three
representatives am@ng the Top
Ten tournament, cafeer scorers,

Kansas State’s Ernie Barrett,

and Colorado’s Wayne Tucker,
along with Buchanan, they
never have made much splash
in any single meet. Buchanan’s
1951 effort is the high-water
mark and he is the lone out-
count delegate on the Top Ten

Single-tournament scoring tab-

ulations.

With anything approaching
their early pace, yany one of
the four must be conceded a
chance at the tournament point

pennant. Van Cleave will come |

in tied for second on the con-
ference pre-tournament scor-
ing tables with a 17.7 average
in four games. Segar is fourth

with 15.9 in six; Stauffer fifth

with 15.6 in five, and Lane
sixth with 15.3 in four.

Van Cleave is likely to see
his average shrink under stress
of more severe competition
since the Cyclones have met
only Colorado A & M, Creigh-
ton,- Grinnell and Drake. The
other three have been shooting
against major targets in al-
most every start. Segar has
collected his last 37 points on

‘the road against Oregon State

and Oregon.

Stauffer will be under clos-
est scrutiny since he is the
ieading pointsmith of the de-
fending -champions who are
given a better-than-average
chance of becoming’ the first
team to bag two titles in suc-
cession,