Creme de la Cramer

Tomorrow morning Harvard will be the veritable number one basketball team in the Ivy League.

Brown will reign triumphant over the league's statistical standings, but the Crimson will be the only team to have beaten any and everybody in the Brain Trust.

Granted that Penn has won the last four Ivy League titles, is currently leading the Ivies again, and has a potential all-American forward in Ron Haigler. Nevertheless, Harvard will defeat Penn by at least four points--probably 69-65.

Why this sudden turnabout by a spectator who was weaned on the Quakers' triumphant battles at the Palestra?

Clearly, this year's Penn squad is not the magnificent five I had expected. I realized that the Quakers weren't totally immortal when they succumbed to a fairly good California squad, or even a half-decent St. Bonaventure club.

But when the pacificist Quakers lost to the Bruins, 66-65, last Saturday, it became obvious that Harvard would be blessed with a 7-2 record after tonight.

During the Christmas break Harvard faced the Quakers in what amounted to a one-sided battle for the Crimson until the last minutes of the game.

It was evident to the Palestra crowd that night that Harvard was definitely the better team. Even the Philadelphia papers commended coach Tom Sanders on "a superbly coached game."

Throughout that 55-53 Harvard loss, the Crimson's Lou Silver pulled some incredible tricks on the Quakers, turning Penn's 6-ft. 11-in. center, Henry Johnson, into a well-rooted tree for most of the game. Meanwhile, he scored 23 points.

The Crimson's Ken Wolfe also cut deep into Penn's supposedly impenetrable defense. No matter whom the Quakers put on Wolfe or Silver, they couldn't stop the pair.

By the end of the game the partisan Penn crowd even acknowledged Silver and Wolfe's efforts with a smattering of applause.

If there wasn't a hefty Penn contingent to cheer for the red and the blue that night, the Crimson wouldn't have had to wait until tonight's IAB showdown to beat the Quakers.

What exactly is wrong with this year's edition of Philadelphia's Ivy basketball? Even a man with a keen eye for the obvious would observe that with a talent-laden line-up the likes of Penn, it must be the coaching.

And indeed it is. Ever since Penn lost Dick Harter to Oregon and Chuck Daly became head coach, the Quakers' incredible talent has been neutralized.

With a 20-point, 15-rebound performance guaranteed from Ron Haigler every night, and the best of Philadelphia's b-ball intelligentsia, the Quakers require only a modicum of coaching genius to sweep the league.

Unfortunately Daly hasn't even provided that.

First Daly decided that substitutions would remedy for his "highly touted" Quakers' slow start this year. He insisted on yanking anyone who had played more than five minutes, with the exception of Ron Haigler.

After this dubious strategy failed, Daly went consistently with "horrible" Henry at center, Ed Stefanski at guard, and John Engles at forward.

But after a few more games with this mix-and-match line-up Daly wisely discovered the talents of Bob Bigelow and Bill Finger, and that is what he is going with today.

However, after tonight's debacle Daly will resort to picking a starting line-up out of a hat--if that isn't what he has been doing all season.