Five Wins Two, Drops One On Road Trip; Rockwell Star

The varsity basketball team won two out of three games on its midwestern road trip over the Christmas vacation. By defeating Michigan State, 68 to 57, and Western Reserve, 72 to 68, Coach Norm Shepard's five had already bettered last season's victory total of three games. The Crimson's loss was to Ohio State, 59 to 48.

Forward John Rockwell, averaging 19 points in the three games, was high scorer in the Michigan State and Ohio State centests. Center Ed Smith took game honors against Western Reserve, scoring 23 points, but he was not able to hit the double figures in the two other games.

The varsity had little trouble handing Michigan State its seventh successive defeat in an Ivy League-Western Conference series at East Lansing, Michigan, on December 28.

Halftime Lead

After spotting the Spartans a nine to one lead in the first three minutes, the quintet found the basket, built up a 36 to 29 halftime lead, and kept at least eight points ahead for the rest of the game. Harvard sank only 50 per cent of its foul shots, but even at that collected 22 points.

Rockwell fouled out halfway through the second half, but not before he had scored 19 points, the most in the game.

Ohio State

One night later, the varsity played Ohio State an even game, again in East Lansing, until five minutes into the second half when the score stood 32 all. Then the Buckeyes outwitted the Crimson's man to man defense, and 12 minutes before the game ended, they had a ten point lead.

Each team shot 82 times from the floor, but the Buckeyes sank 20 field goals' compared to Harvard's ten. Rockwell was high scorer with 16 points, although Ohio State at times assigned two men to the lanky forward.

Against Western Reserve on December 31, Smith scored nine points within three minutes early in the second half to break a 40 to 40 deadlock and give Harvard a lead which it never relinquished.

Rockwell was close behind Smith in scoring, with 21 points. Western Reserve matched the Crimson's 26 field goals but couldn't keep up with the Varsity's foul shooting.     G  F  T Rockwell, f  19  18  56 Smith, c  14  7  35 Covey, g  9  14  32 Murphy, f  7  5  19 Gabler, g  6  3  15 Crosby  6  2  14 Hickey  3  3  0 Prior  1  6  8 Stevenson  0  0  0 Totals  65  58  188