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Russia Good Bet to Capturei64 OlympicBasketballTitleCHICAGO. Feb 3. — W — The United States faces such a serious problem in assembling the best basketball team possible for the 1964 Olympics that the Russians have been tabbed a good future bet to win the championship in Tokyo.That’s the word of Doug Mills, University of Illinois athletic director and new vice chairman of the U. S. Olympic basketball committee.“We have some serious problems that we never had before in basketball,” Mills told the Associated Press“It’s because the Olympics will be held in October, the first safe month weather-wise that the games can be held in Tokyo. The rainy season thereextends through the summerinto early fall.“But October means that athletes at schools on a semester basis would have to miss the entire semester to go to Tokyo. They would miss much of the college basketball season since the second semester usually starts around Jan 17.“This would not be such a problem for quarter s y s t e m players, who could miss thefirst quarter then return for the second around Dec. 1 in time to rejoin their teammates for all, or most, of the schedule.“Also with the October date it’s going to be hard to persuade seniors to hold off signing professional contracts.They would miss part of thepro season.”Mills explained that none of these problems existed in the 1960 Olympics at Rome because they were in August.Delayed Signing.“The top senior players, like Oscar Robertson, delayed signing until after the games because they had time to get back before the pro season started,” Mills said.“And in 1964 we also cannotdepend on much help fromAAU basketball. That has declined and has been curtailed so that there are only a few good teams left, like Bartlesville and the Denver Truckers.The Peoria Cats have folded and the Cleveland Piper turnedpro.“But college players always have been the heart of Olympic ball clubs and if we had to rely only on the AAU we would get the hell kicked out of us.”“We’ve got to face the factthat we are in a real bind about getting a good team. We never had lost an Olympic basketball title but 1964 could be the year for the Russians to take over. They rapidly are improving in the sport and the gap between us is narrowing all the time.”Mills said no specific dates in October have been set for the Olympics.Can Salvage Some.“If the basketball tournament can be held no later than the middle of that month we may be able to salvage some top players from semester schools,” he said.“They could drop out for several weeks and return without losing a whole semester that is if they are good enough students to do it.“We also are going to sit down with officials of the pro basketball leagues and talk turkey to them about putting pressure on collegians to sign. We’ll let them know such practice would give them a lot of unfavorable publicity if it cost the U. S. the services of a player it needed.date was applied in the 1960 Olympics:' Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas could have played in Rome and also still played forthe Buckeyes because that school is on the quarter system But Terry Dischinger of Purdue would have had to miss most of his collegiate season because his is a semester school.”Mills said he does not know how many schools in the nation are on the semester or quarter system, but they are about equally divided in theBig Ten.Evansville Routs Valpo, 103-78itAs forquarter example of worked ifthe semester and , this is an how it would have the same OctoberVALPARAISO, Ind., Feb. 3 lift — Buster Briley, Evansville College’s sharp shooting sophomore from Madison, poured in 39 points Saturday night in a 103-78 Indiana Conference basketballvictory over Valparaiso’s Crusaders.Brilev hit 14 fielders and 11 straight free throws. Marv Pruett added 20 points to the Aces’ total. Chuck Kriston was high forValparaiso with 27.Evansville led 50-36 at the half in its sixth victory of eight ICC starts, good for second place. Valparaiso was left 3-4 in theleague.IOrioles Sign WilhelmBALTIMORE. Feb. 3.-1* Hoyt Wilhelm, the veteran knuc-klebali specialist, has signed his 1962 contract with the Baltimore Orioles.The 38-year-old right-hander is the only pitcher ever to leadboth major leagues in earned run averages. He captured the National League title as a rookie with the New Y’ork Giants inand repeated in the American League with Baltimore in1959.His lifetime average of 2.81 ranks second to Whitey Ford of the New York Yankees as the best among active pitchers.Turkey Run Wins, 70-54TURKEY RUN, Ind., Feb. 3. Bill Doss set a new school record by scoring 36 points as Turkey Run clipped Cayuga, 70-54, hereSaturday night.Turkey Run led by period counts of 18-10. 37-24 and 47-39.TURKEY RUN lt;70t FG FT PFHuff 1 O 3Davies ........ . 1 I 0pom 13 6 3IfcCampbell .....*....... -. i o iNewlin ............ 1 1 1Paddock ..... 1 3 5Rowing! ..... 5 2Totals . ......27 16 17CAYUGA lt;54 FG FT PF mmMto ....... 6 4 2Ffiiiir ......______ 4 o 5IiCTW ........_____... ..... i o 2Delp ...................... 2 O 3Kinder man ............... 2 o 5
Newspaper Details
Terre Haute Tribune Star
Terre Haute, Indiana, US
Sun, Feb 04, 1962
Page 40
Full Page
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WV, USA 02 May 2020
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