Unexpected the Rule Big Seven Meet Zany BY DON PIERCE Special Correspondent OW many ambushes await favorites in the eighth an- nual Big Seven basketball tour- nament which gets out of the starting gate Saturday in Kan- sas City’s municipal audito- rium? What odd outcroppings of team performance and bi- zarre player incidents will mark the affair? Those are the magnets that again will draw sellout houses in the 10,000-capacity round- ball palace at least three of the four playing nights and con- tinue to project the affair as one of the nation’s finest, de- spite its.comparatively youth- ful existence. This is the meet that already has produced two high-scoring overtime matches without prec- edent in regular ‘league play, Kansas’ 90-88 win over Kansas State in the 1951 semifinals and Stanford’s 103-102 edging of Iowa State in the first con- solation round of the same meet. This is a tournament in which Iowa State, a team that hasn’t won 2 league cage flag since 1945 and‘has dropped 13 con- secultive conference decisions to Kansas State, is the only club which holds an-edge over. the Wildcats in tourney play. It tis only 1-0, the Cyclones having captured the only match between the two. But State is 0-7 against a combination of Missouri and Kansas while State holds a bulge over all other comers. The meet stellar performer like also has seen 4 Mis- souri’s win Wilfong blanked from the field for a full game, And it once produced an all- tournament team, the 1949 five, that did not include a sin- gle member of Missouri's championship five. _ Also consider this rare back- drop: Only post-men ever have won a meet individual scoring | championship. Yet none holds the single-game point record: Three men, Oklahoma’s Sher- man Norton, the record-holder with 39; Minnesota’s Maynard Johnson and Kansas State’s Dick Knostman, with 38. each, have nailed more points in a Tourney Bracket FIRST ROUND PAIRINGS 8 p. m. Saturday: ‘Kansas vs. rado. 9:45 p. m. Saturday: lowa State vs. oe p. m. Menday: Noack 9:45 p. m. _ Monday: Oklahoma vs. Washington. Colo- Kansas State VS “Two teams, Colorado in 1949, and Stanford in 1951, have come into the meet with unde- feated records, but never even reached the finals. Nebraska once outscored Iowa State, 19-1, in the overtime period to notch an 86-67 consolation tri- umph in 1948. ' Jim Stange, who still is co- holder: of the: school record for most points and most free throws in a single game, potted a goal for Nebraska in this one, wheeling into the wrong goal after snaring a jump ball. The last two finals have ended in tears, boos and: rhu- “barbs. SMU set a pattern for the unexpected in the inaugural meet by winning the champion- ship as one of the two guest teams. The Mustangs did so by clipping Kansas, 49-46, in the finals. No other invited five... Washington is completing the eight-team bracket this year e+. ever has won the crown. . Kansas State added impetus to what has become an annual surprise motif in the same meet by ambushing Oklahoma’s eventual NCAA runners-up, ; 59-55, in the opening round of the meet despite a 24-point sa- lute by Sooner pivot, Gerald Tucker. The Wildeats since have be- come the tourney’s most domi- nate team, winning three championships .,.. no other club has won more than one .,. and clearing the. first Found: in every meet. » Yet that blank against the Cyclones, persists. It was ac- complished chiefly by a pair of midget: guards, 5-9 Bob Pet- — _ersen and 5-8 Don Ferguson, who rollicked 1or an aggregate of 23. points: as the Iowans scored a 56-53 upset in the 1948 third-place playoff. ~ Missouri won the ’49 title by - edging Oklahoma, 44-42, in the finals, after disposing of Colo- rado, 62-51,,and Michigan, 47- starting five of Bill Stauffer, Don Stroot, J erry Fowler, Bob. Wachter and George Lafferty earned a first-team all-meet | berth. Wilfong, since. lifted. by ‘the | armed forces, ‘drew his hand- cuff in last year's meet from Kansas guard Dean Kelley who restricted him to four points from the free throw line. Had the versatile Tiger sentinel merely notched .his. season’s average ‘of 11.1 KU could not have scored. that 66-62 semi- | final upset. Norton cut his record in the — opening round of 1951 as Ok- lahoma, upset Stanford, 77-71. The. lean 6-4 Redshirt ‘har- vested 13 oaskets, nine of them lay-ups out of Bruce Drake’s patented “Shuffle” with: which the Sooners hoodwinked’ the Pacific’ Coasters all evening. | Norton canned every one. of | his 13 free throw tries which also is a meet mark... Stanford had come: into the | tourney with a string of eight consecutive caren vic- tories. Colorado met a sities pa in *49..won it lugged a ribbon. of seven straight triumphs into the hall, only to suffer that 51-62 sacking at the hands of Missouri, the champs’ “widest winning spread of the meet, in the semifinals. That record Stanford-Iowa State match was’ chiefly the product of a rules experiment which 1) Forced the offended | team to shoot all free throws © and 2) Gave the offended team ball possession after every suc-- cessful free throw, HE X1I-KS heart-stopper, played just -one game | later, must go down as the | tourney’s greatest : bout. to | date. This saw the Wildcats. | wipe out two 19-point leads to | tie at 72-72 6:40 ‘vom the fin- | ish. It also saw. Lovellette | score only five points thru the | first half and nail 22 of his 27 while carrying four fouls. | State forward Hoot Gibson, sent the game. into overtime with a long tip-in 9 seconds before the finish to forge an 80-80 deadlock. Then the two | bitter intra-state foes whirled | thru 18 points in he over= | time, ; sh Ranking on the same: plasie was. Missouri’s 1949 win. over | OU which saw Guard George | Lafferty score his team’s last | seven points to pull the Tigers | from behind, on With the conference ex- | pected to be considerably | tighter from. top to bottom | 46. Yet none of the Bengals’ this winter, the intense firing in Kansas City should be even more acrid.