Indiana Cagers Defeat Harvard, 97-76

BLOOMINGTON, Ind,--Early in the second half, James Brown drove for the basket, challenging Indiana's big center, 6-8, Steve Downing, to try and block his shot. The 6-6 Brown leaped as high as he could but Downing knocked his shot harmlessly away.

Downing did a lot of shot blocking, rebounding and scoring, leading the Hoosiers to a 97-76 victory over Harvard Saturday afternoon. The big center scored 31 points and pulled down 12 rebounds during the contest.

The Hoosier center got help from the rest of the Indiana team, which forced Harvard to commit 38 turnovers. Last year's high scorer Jim Fitzsimmons could only score nine points against the sticky Indiana defense.

"Each of their ballplayers wasn't great, but they helped each other out well," Fitzsimmons said after the contest. "If I got by the man who was guarding me, another man came over to pick me up."

Brown called Indiana the "second best helping-out club I've played against." He said that only Penn did a better job reacting on defense than Indiana.

Because he has been plagued with an ankle injury, Brown did not start and only played 15 minutes. In that time he scored 13 points and picked off six rebounds, After entering the game in the middle of the first half, Brown picked up four quick fouls and coach Bob Harrison took him out of the contest.

Brown returned in the second half, fouling out with five minutes left.

"The story of the game was that we got 70 shots and they got 91," Harrison said. "If we can correct some of the small things we did wrong on our last break and in our defense, I know we'll do all right."

Harrison said that the problem with the Harvard defense was that the players did not help out enough. For example, "When a man goes baseline on you, you've got to react. We just didn't react quick enough," he said.

The Crimson coach attributed the extraordinarily high number of turnovers committed to "poor conditioning and anxiety."

"A number of the boys who have been hurt for us were not in top condition, and when you get tired you make errors. Also I think because it was our first game a number of our kids were anxious," Harrison said.

High scorer for the Crimson was forward Tony Jenkins. Jenkins hit consistently from the corners, notching 24 points. The 6-8 junior shot at a 63 per cent clip, and hauled in 12 rebounds against Downing. Captain Marshall Senders led the team in rebounding, pulling down 14, Early in the contest sanders, Jenkins and center Floyd Lewis did a good job keeping Downing off the offensive backboard, by boxing out well.

Both teams were tense in the early going with Indiana opening up a 9-10 lead after nine minutes of play, The Crimson came back to narrow the margin to 26-24 with six minutes left in the half, but Indiana opened up a 46-35 lead at the midway point. Sophomore forwards Steve Green and John Laskowski itched in eight points for the Hoosiers during the half, Downing added 14 point in the stanza.

Downing began to take control in the second half, scoring six of the Hoosier's first 11 baskets. The big contest penetrated the Harvard defense to score most of his baskets on tip-ins and lay-ups. Behind Downing, Indiana stretched its lend to 20 points with six minutes to go, Harvard put on a full court press but could not manage to bring the Indiana lend below 15 points at any point thereafter.

One of the big disappointments for Indiana was the play of highly-touted freshman Quinn Buckner. Buckner, a high school All-American from Illinois, could only manage four field goals on 16 attempts. Coach Bobby Knight said after the game that Buckner, who has only practiced five days because of football, has "shot three times as well" in practice.

Knight said that he was exceptionally pleased with the play of Green, Laskowski, and sophomore guard-John Kamstra. "When the sophomores and freshman come into the ball game late in the first half, that's when we started moving the ball," he said.

Harrison compared Indiana to North Carolina, explaining that both teams had such good personal that they could substitute freely without giving anything up.

The tenacious defense made it difficult for Harvard to run its new offense. "The Indiana defense was so light that it forced us out of our patterns," Fitzsimmons said after the game. The Crimson looked best when it was running its fast break.

Indiana plays its game in the 17,000 seat Assembly Hall which was completed last year, 12,330 people, a small crowd by Hoosier standards, turned out to watch Saturday's season opener for both squads. Assembly Hall was constatnly in bedlam as the Hoosier fans went wild whoever an Indians player scored a basket or brought in a rebound, At halftime, Indiana's brass hand played and a girl in a sequin costume twirled a baton at midcourt.

Throughout the game, a group of 35 cheerleaders performed carefully choreographed routines, hoping to further excite the already wild Indiana fans. However, local observers were not impressed by the crowd performance.

"If you think this is something, you ought to the Indians fans at high school games during tournament time," one local reporter commented.

Harvard's Indoor Athletic building holds a capacity of 1400 people.

Harrison said that he was "disappointed but not discouraged" by Saturday's game.