WEDNESDAY JANUARY 11,195 THE MICHIGAN DAILY -- - I ____ ____ __NO Lagers' Wins Earn Big Ten Limelight - - 1 .' Underdog' Wolverines Lead Conference Race -- -- -- V : 4> In the span of 48 hours Michi- ghn's basketball team has surged s from the role of an also-ran to a point of major contention in the W e s t e r n Conference's young championship race. The Wolverines' smashing twin triumphs over Iowa on Saturday and previously undefeated Indiana on Monday have caused Big Ten coaches and scouts suddenly to sit Up and take notice. The situation will 'remain at least until this Weekend when Michigan meets two chore cage powers, Wisconsin and Ohio State, in games away. y, * * * THE HOOSIERS, by every stan- Oard, measured up to their high national ranking which stemmed from their record of 10 straight Victories. They rallied magnifi- cently in the second half to over- come a 12 point deficit, a feat made more difficult by the parti- san crowd and foreign floor. But Michigan would not be turned back. Indiana, tried to win by beating the guards, but the guards would not be beaten. Hoosier coach Branch McCrack- 1 en kept pouring fresh men into the contest to harass Chuck Murray and Hal Morrill with a maddening pressing defense. ute without relief, as did Suprunowicz. Mack MURRAY PLAYED his greatest game. Constantly he drove into ' scoring position and rang the bell with a series of clutch baskets, in- cluding the game breaker. He cooly flipped in seven of eight all- important free throws. Morrill never played harder in his life. He completely outfought the visitors under their basket, teaming with Leo Vander Kuy to limit Indiana's potent re- bound shots to a bare minimum. He saved his scoring efforts for the late stages when he struck two telling blows with tricky fielders. Suprunowicz was a hero in his own right, as the driving force be- hind Michigan's 69 point offen- sive and as a steadying influence when the game was most tense. If it had been an ordinary game, Jim Skala would have been the Michigan headliner. Replacing Don McIntosh who was shackled by an off night, he responded with a smooth performance, displaying none of the signs of inexperience which have kept him out of the lineup recently. Five times he poised himself in midair and fired accurate shots into the netting. In addition he retrieved a giant's share of rebounds. n 4 The two Wolverine stalwarts 'rose to every occasion and fought their hearts out to turn the tide of battle. They played every min- - ' 25% DISCOUNT on all SKIS, SKATES and SKI BINDINGS RENT AII ' TOBOGGAN !. Il bDAILYD OUBLE by pres holmes, sports co-editor I THE SETTING, stage, and actors were different but the script was basically the same. It reads something like, "An underdog team S pulled an upset to snap an umpteen-game winning streak." Nevertheless last Monday night's hair-raising 69-67 win over a loaded Indiana quintet brought wild cries of excitement and frenzied ejaculations to the effect that it was the most exciting game staged in these parts for quite some time-and that it was. * * * * THE SETTING WAS perfect. Indiana boasted a winning streak of ten straight and had been picked by expert and fan alike to make Michigan its eleventh victim. Nearly 8,000 people jammed into Yost Field House to see for themselves. There was a tenseness in the air, and cheering such as had never been heard before resounded around the 28-year-old Field House. At halftime, with the Wolverines out in front, 33-25, the thunder of thousands of feet stamping on the bleachers was added to the already deafening roar of the cheering voices. The Wolverines, and fans too, were showing little or no respect for the Hoosiers' spotless record. Indiana came charging back in the second half, however, and made the Field House a dangerous place for anyone who happened to have a weak heart. The lead changed hands four times during the last ten minutes of play, and although Indiana was never ahead in the last four-and-a-half minutes the clincher didn't drop through the basket until AFTER the final horn. Charley Murray tipped the ball up towards the basket after Jim Skala's shot had bounded off, and while the ball was still in the air the horn sounded. It bounded on the rim of the basket twice and then slithered through the net, to the wonderment and ecstacy of the Michigan camp. Finish Recalls Memories THIS FINISH undoubtedly brought memories back to the Indiana followers of a game the Hoosiers played against Minnesota several years ago. Indiana had won nine straight going into that contest, but the Gophers were out for an upset and led at the half, 29-16. Indiana bounced back in the second stanza of that game also, to tie up the ball game, and then go into the lead, 44-42, with only a minute to play. Minnesota got the ball in a scramble under the boards and Don Carlson dumped it in to knot the count. Now there were only 25 seconds left as Indiana dribbled down the floor. A pass went wide and Minnesota's Willie Warhol grabbed it, dribbled twice to mid-court, and then heaved the ball at the Hoosier basket. The final gun sounded while the ball was in the air, and player and fan alike waited breathlessly as the ball sailed through the hoop to give the Gophers a 46-44 win. '4 * * * Home Court An Advantage THE HISTORY OF basketball is crammed with just such incidents, all set and staged differently and with different players, but the punch-lineis always the same-"the end of a victory string." Just last year the Minnesota team had the tables turned on them when Illinois stopped a 13-game Gopher winning streak with a 45-44 win, to add to the increasing list of streak-ending battles. There is one unique and important feature about these con- tests which ought to be discussed: all of them took place on the winning team's home court. e Basketball enthusiasts have long agreed that there is a decided advantage to playing at home, and some have gone so far as to state it in so many points. Tren is the usual number, but a definite figure is so elusive that it's safest just to say there IS an advantage to playing at home. THE FEW CONFERENCE games which have been played so far this season emphatically substantiate this home-court advantage theory. Out of the eight Big Ten games staged so far only one, a 60-58 win for Northwestern over Purdue, has been lost by the home team, and this one was all tied up at the end of regulation play and had to go into overtime. The performance of a team on the road, therefore, is what wins or loses the championship. Last year Michigan lost only one home game, while dropping four out of six games away from Yost Field House. The home record so far this year is spotless, as all of Michigan's setbacks have been suffered on foreign floors. This weekend the Wolverines play two games away from home, one against Wisconsin Saturday night and the other at Ohio State Monday. The showing Michigan makes in thesettwo games, then, should serve as an indication of whether they are just unbeatable on their home court, and no good away from home, or if they are truly a championship ball club capable of winning on strange courts, as well as on the Yost Field House floor. More power to 'em! 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