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Thursday. Feb. 18, 1960 University Daily Kansan
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Hickman Stopped 'O' Once, Would Like Another Try
Bv Dan Felger
Up in Bob Hickman's home town of Terre Haute, Ind., it's considered a civic disgrace if Gertsmeyer High's Llack Cats don't get down to the final round of the Indiana High School Basketball Tourney each year.
Hickman's senior year was no time for the city officials to be alarmed though, because once the Black Cats skidded by Clyde Lovellette's old prep school, Terre Haute Garfield, in the sectional, Gerttsmeyer sledded into the finals of the tournament at the Butler University Fieldhouse.
A 6-5 Magician
Then the Black Cats collided with Indianapolis' all-Negro high school, Crispus Attucks, led by a 6-5 magician named Oscar Robertson.
If Roberston shines in the collegiate ranks, he was brilliant as a high school player in Indiana. The night before the game the Gertsmeyer coach racked his brain trying to devise a way to stop Robertson, who would soon be named the top Basketball Player in Indiana.
That "chaser," later to be nominated as the Number Two Player in Indiana, was Bob Hickman, the Kansas defensive handeuff.
Finally the coach, Howard Sharpe, decided to play the hot-shooting Attucks five with a zone defense, except for Robertson. Gertsmeyer would put a "chaser" on the Attuck's star.
Attucks went on to win the game. 68-59, but not before Hickman demonstrated to Hoosier Hysteria fans that in his personal battle with Robertson, the "Big O" came out second-best.
Hickman scored 17 points to Robertson's 16, the first time Oscar had ever yielded scoring honors to anyone. On defense Hickman stopped the "unstoppable Robertson" yet a second time when Oscar was waved to the bench with five fouls at the beginning of the fourth quarter, four of them on charging violations.
Outscores Big 'O'
It was the only time Robertson ever fouled out of a game in his high school career.
Since then, four years have created a divergence in the play of Bobby Hiekman and the "Big O."
Recently Robertson smashed the major college basketball scoring record of 2,587 points scored in four years by Dick Hemrie of Wake Forest by surpassing that total in less than three complete seasons. This completely overshadows Hickman's current mark of 290 points in two and a half seasons of play.
This year Robertson is averaging close to 36 points a game. Hickman is hitting at about a six-point a game clip.
Different On Defense
But on defense it's a different story. When Kansas runs into a team with a hot-shooting guard, Hickman handles him and halts scoring in the backcourt. Robertson, many of his critics say, plays defense like an 82-year old grandmother.
"I don't know much about his defense now, because I've only seen him play a couple of times," Hickman said as he recalled his personal duel with the "Big O." "but as I remember he didn't play too much defense."
"I beat him down the floor on a couple of fast breaks and then got my other field goals shooting from outside. He didn't come out to stop me. He wasn't nearly as quick on defense."
Hickman says that one of the most important things he remembers about guarding Robertson was Oscar's driving tactics.
"In our game Oscar tried to drive on me a lot and the thing that really surprised me was his charging. Four of his fouls came on charging, and I don't think that's ever happened to him since. But then again maybe it was just a bad game for him. After they beat us, Attucks played Lafayette Jefferson for the championship and he went out and set a fieldhouse record."
A College Player Then
Many fans that followed Oscar in his prep days said that the lithe athlete was in reality a college player even then. Bob Hickman agrees with this view, but he doesn't believe that Robertson has addd much more than polish to his game.
"I'd like to guard the "Big O" again," Hickman grins, "but I'm not saying how it would turn out."
Many players have tried to stop him. Most have failed. Each time he scores a point he sets a record.
Bob Hickman would like to have another crack at Oscar's offensive armor.
He savs:
"We're the same height we were then (Hickman is 6-2, Robertson 6-5) and maybe I could give him another good game—it would be a heck of a good way to end my college career."
"Maybe we'd defense him another way though, I don't know. But I think Attucks didn't depend on him as much as Cincinnati does now—maybe a zone with a chaser on him would work again."
Mav Meet Again
The chance that Kansas might meet the Bearcats this year is a fair possibility. If Kansas keeps on playing the way it has recently, Hickman feels, the Jayhawks might take the Big Eight Title.
Three Senators Won't Sign
This year the Big Eight champ meets an independent team from the
A solid bloc of Senators—Roy Sievers, Bob Allison and Jim Lemon—voted "no" today to a proposal that they sign for what Waukington owner Cal Griffith is offering.
"I think I was the last to sign the past four years," Sievers said without attempting to boast of the distinction, "and it's beginning to look like I'll be last again this time."
Midwest, a team from the Southwestern conference or the winner of the Missouri Valley Conference at Manhattan to decide a finalist to go on to the NCAA finals at San Francisco. Right now, Cincinnati tops the Missouri Valley league.
Hickman's ready, and the "Big O" is the "Big O." If they square off again, it's going to be basketball at its best.
Life is an incurable disease. Cowley
Frosh-Rockhurst Game Is Canceled
Coach Jerry Waugh's freshmen basketeers, going after their second win in three starts, wound up without an opponent for last night when Rockhurst canceled their match, set for 7:30.
A mix-up in schedules of the Kansas City ball club was given as the season for the withdrawal of the Rockhurst "B" squad.
Jealousy is always born together with love, but it does not always die when love dies. —La Roche-foucauld
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