The varsity basketball team journeys to Springfield tonight in an attempt to stay above the 500 mark for the season. Norm Shepard's men have won three and lost two so far in this campaign.

Facing the Crimson tonight is the problem of breaking their high-scoring due of John Rockwell and Ed Smith loose against the Gymnasis. Harvard's two top scorers were held to a total of 18 points in Saturday night's 58 to 33 defeat at the hands of Georgetown, and seem to control the varsity's fate tonight.

Five Games

In the five games of the 1949 campaign, Rockwell and Smith have scored 177 points out of 328 for the entire team. Against the Hoyas in Washington Saturday, a pair of tall Georgetowners throttled the Crimson's leading scorers.

Shepard will carry his new travelling squad to Springfield tonight. Making the trip to the Western Massachusetts college will be Smith, Rockwell, Jim Gabler, Gerry Murphy, Bill Hickey, Captain Bill Prior, Cliff Crosby, Dick Covey, John Stevenson, and Quent Stiles.

Tonight's contest will be the second in a five-game road jaunt for the varsity five. Three games in the West against Michigan State, Ohio State, and Western Reserve after Christmas, the last on New Year's Eve, will procede the Crimson's next appearance in the Boston area.

The varsity makes its 1950 debut by playing the powerful Holy Cross Crusaders in the familiar confines of the Arena the night after vacation ends, on January 5.