What with the football season over biting winds driving athletic spectators indoors, and the first game of the season, an exhibition, scheduled for Saturday night, basketball is now looming into the middle of the sports spotlight.

Coach Earl Brown has been putting his squad through night sessions for three weeks, five times a week, and today afternoon practices from 3 to 4:30 o'clock begin now that Brown is relieved of his duties as Dick Harlow's end coach.

Team to Play Coast Guard

The Varsity team starts off the season with an exhibition contest against a Boston Coast Guard outfit Saturday night in the Indoor Athletic Building. Headed by "Ziggy" Strezlecki, Clark University player who was second among the nation's scorers last year only to the Rhode Island star who broke Hank Luisetti's record, the Coast Guard team will be tough opposition for the Crimson. They also have a former Wisconsin player and a former Iowa captain on their roster.

To meet the Coast Guard and other service teams, besides college opponents in and out of the Eastern intercollegiate League, Brown has five returning from the 13 lettermen on his first Harvard team last season, a team which ended up fourth in the league behind Dartmouth, Princeton, and Cornell--with a record of five wins and seven losses.

Leading these five is Bunks Burditt, first Junior to be Varsity captain since 1936, and high scorer for the Crimson last season. Bunks has had a sparkling basketball career ever since he came to Harvard in 1940 from La Grange, Illinois. He was captain and high scorer on his Freshman team, and then last year the 155 pound, six foot three inch center came in fourth among the league's scorers with 147 points, although he secred 234 points during the whole season.

For a while last winter Burditt was shifted to forward when Hugh Hyde, tallest man on the squad with his six feet, four inches, put on a late scoring spree. Brown has decided to put Burditt back at the pivot spot this year and let Hyde use his height to retrieve the ball from enemy backboards from a guard position.

Guard Competition Close

Don Lutze, who was playing pretty regularly until he became ineligible just before the B. C. game, is a leading candidate for the other guard spot, although Freshman Mike Fansler has been showing up well. Other men who can't be counted out in the reckonings are Mike De Leo and football star Don Richards, who hasn't come out for practice yet, both of whom played at guard for the '45 Freshman team. Mal Moley, '45 tennis star, is also competing. Mike Keene, captain of last year's Freshman team, who was converted from center to guard by Brown, is out for around 11 weeks with a broken wrist suffered in a jam-up under the basket in practice last week.

The forwards are the big question according to Coach Brown. Lettermen who are in the fight for a starting position are George Dillon, Tom Axon, and Dick Elken. From the '45 quintet, Dean Honnessey and Frank Bixler, both of whom scored a lot of points for the Yardlings, may make the grade although Brown feels they still need experience. Al Reade, a Senior, and Dick Forster, who played at forward and center for the '45 team, are also trying for a regular berth. And George Boston, Freshman end on the football team, who played center for Dean Academy, is expected to report for practice as soon as he rests up from the football campaign.

Graf to Help Out Brown

Helping out Brown yesterday was Jack Graf, who played three years at guard for Ohio State. Graf is studying at the Business School, and he aided Harlow with the football team this fall.

Among the lettermen that will be missing this year are Captain and guard Bud Finegan and forward Ed Buckley who are both in the Marines. Ed Rothschild is in the Law School now and Joe Romano, whose where-abouts are unknown, has a brother in the Class of '46 who is on the Freshman-Jayvee squad. Bumy Hadley, Bill Snyder, Art Scully, and Jock Torgan, although all still in school, have not yet reported for practice for various reasons, while Billy Webber is in the Navy, and Chick Lutz is in the Army.

The first game on the regular schedule after the game with the Boston Coast Guard team is with M. I. T. on December 4. Coach Brown's predictions about the season were neither decidedly pessimistic nor optimistic. With possibly some Freshmen and other comparatively inexperienced players on the first team or directly in line for substitution, Brown feels that "it's impossible to tell now how the team will come out and we'll just have to let the season tell the story as it goes along."