MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1951
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE FIVE
Along the JAYHAWKER trail
By BOB NELSON
Daily Kansan Assistant Sports Editor
Brigham Young university's performance in the western N.C.A.A. basketball playoffs should long linger in the minds of cage teams attempting to double as National Invitational Tournament and N.C.A.A. champions.
The Cougars, champions of the Skyline Six conference, won the N.J.T. crown by winning over Dayton, 62 to 43, but failed to duplicate City College of New York's "grand slam" mythical crowns of last year as they faired poorly in Kansas City's N.C.A.A. playoffs.
With B.Y.U., who played 37 games this year winning 28 and losing nine, it was just a case of too much playing and especially too much travelling. The Mountain Boys played all 37 games away from home as the Cougars are without a gym of their own. Home games were played some 40-odd miles away in Salt Lake City.
Brigham Young finished the season as the nation's 10th best team according to the consensus of the men who picked the nation's top collegiate teams in the A.P. and U.P. cage polls. There seems little doubt that their tenth-place selection was just or they could have even rated the Cougars a bit higher but B.Y.U. certainly failed to show much of this power in Kansas City.
In downing San Jose State, 68 to 61, in a first round game, All-American center Mel Hutchins and forward Bob Minson performed in great style but the game apparently took its toll physically on the travel weary Westerners.
Two nights later Kansas State ran the legs off the Cougars with a 64 to 54 victory after leading 39 to 21 at halftime. The B.Y.U. players looked dead on their feet and allowed K-State players to break past them once after time for layup goals.
And the following night the University of Washington scored a 17- point 80 to 67 victory over the dead-tired men of Coach Stan Watts. Hutchins barely managed to make it up and down the floor he was so tired and beat up from the long season, yet at times forced himself to flash form that left little doubt that he was of true All-American caliber.
Last year Bradley attempted to win both the N.I.T. and the N.C.A.A.crowns but failed in both finals largely because the boys from Peoria just ran out of gas. The Braves' season stretched over 37 games and matched Coach Forrest Anderson's club in six tough games in the final 13 days during the N.I.T. and N.C.A.A. tournevts.
Neither Bradley or B.Y.U. treated the N.C.A.A. cage fans to the high class of basketball that each club was capable of showing. In last year's case with Bradley and this year's with B.Y.U., the N.I.T. cage witnessed the best performances turned in by these great teams.
Phog Allen Coaches West To Victory
The "Phog" Allen-coached West College All-Stars took an astonishing 75 to 59 victory over the East team March 31 when they met in Madison Square Garden for the sixth annual New York Herald Tribune fresh air fund game.
Under the direction of the famous University of Kansas basketball sage, the West team built up a 14 to 7 lead with seven minutes gone and then added to it steadily. They left the hardwads at half-with a comfortable 43 to 31
The 16-point margin was the biggest ever recorded by either entry in the event. It was a welcome victory for Coach Allen, who last year was voted basketball's "man of the year."
And why do college basketball teams attempt to do the all but impossible as Bradley and Brigham Young university? It probably can be partly blamed on outside pressure and the remainder with the players who love to play and seek the honors that come with winning both national crowns but these players seem to little realize the terrific physical strain in playing nearly 40 games during a cage season.
This year Kentucky's national N.C.A.A. champions—and listed as the nation's No. 1 team nearly all season in the cage polls—turned down a bid to play in the New York N.I.T. in order to go all-out in its bid for the N.C.A.A. title.
Coach Adolph Rupp's Wildcats finished the season with a 32-2 record and would have likely fell by the wayside as B.Y.U. had it attempted to win both tourneys.
Oklahoma A. and M., which fault-ered badly in losing five of its final nine games, also turned down a bid to play in the New York tourney.
The failure of great teams like Bradley and B.Y.U. to win both tourneys in the same year will likely do much to discourage teams in the future from attempting to win both crowns.
Under the present N.C.A.A. tourney setup, the real national champion is determined in this 16-tournament and cage fans deserve the best—not seeing worn out teams like Bracley and B.Y.U. Here's hoping great cage teams think twice in the future before placing their heads on the chopping block.
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Gehrmann, Wilt Enter Mile Run Here April 21
Two of the nation's top milers, Don Gehrmann and Fred Wilt, will again match strides in the 26th running of the Kansas Relays on April 21. It will be the tenth meeting of the pair, Gehrmann having bested his slender opponent eight times.
Gehrmann has competed for the last two years in the Glenn Cunningham mile. In the 1949 Relays he tied the record of 4:10.1 set by Blaine Rideout of North Texas State in 1940. The next year, Gehrmann, again outdistanced all competitors, running under Wisconsin colors.
If the lanky ex-Badger can cop the Cunningham trophy this year he will be the first athlete in the history of the event to win it three times.
Wilt, former Indiana ace and one-time national A.A.U. 5,000 and 10,000 meter king, was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1948 at those distances. He is not serving with the F.B.I. in New York.
The duel between the two athletes was first projected into prominence in the much disputed Wanamaker mile in the 1950 Milrose games in New York City.
This rhubarb, stemming from a dead-heat finish, found Gehrmann first being adjudged the winner, then giving way to Wilt, only to recapture the title permanently in a final decision of what has since been called "the longest mile race in track history."
After winning six race races over his famous foe, the former Wisconsin thin-man went down March 3 in the Knights of Columbus mile in 4:08.6. Wilt thus snapped a string of 39 consecutive Gehrmann mile wins, which extended all the way back to the Olympic 1,500-meter finals in 1948.
Wilt won again March 10 at the Milwaukee Journal games in 4:08.9. Gehrmann fought back in the Bankers' Mile at the Chicago Relays March 17 with a five-yard victory in 4:09.7.
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