As the Ivy Basketball League, or to give it its formal designation, the Eastern Intercollegiate League, approaches its mid-seasonal mark, Columbia's Light Blue Cagers look suspiciously as though they could purr their way to the championship.
With a skein of five wins and no losses to their credit, the Lions' roar has already defeated to defeat every League team but the Crimson. On paper the Lions still need to cop five out of their remaining seven games for the pennant, but the money boys are solidly behind the Light Blue five built around towering center Walt Budko.
Coach Bill Barclay's Crimson basketeers, at present tied with Princeton for the fourth place slot with a record of two wins and three losses, are just hitting the rough water of the Ivy League campaign.
Besides two contests with Yale, in the next month they must face Columbia twice, and Cornell and Pennsylvania each once. The latter have both come out victorious in their previous Crimson encounters.
With Captain Bob Gale, Cornell's high-scoring, former all-Ivy League pivot man, out for the season with an injury, the Big Red suffered a severe set-back in their championship hopes last week when Columbia drubbed them, 41 to 27, sending them into a second place tie with Pennsylvania at four wins and three losses.
Pennsylvania, sparked by two of the league's individual scoring guys, Chick Crossin (first) and Jack Colberg (third), looks hot in the books, but the Quakers' fire was thoroughly squelched last week by Columbia, 66 to 50, and Cornell, 42 to 37, Suffering from the loss of star center "Butch" Van Breda Kolff two weeks ago. Princeton's Tigers dropped three straight games and tumbled from an early first place tie with Columbia to fifth slot on the league ladder.
To date only seventh place Dartmouth (2 and 4) and last place Yale (2 and 5) have been actually eliminated from the championship race, both despite the prowess of two highly-touted centers, And Brindley and Tony Lavelli.
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