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Show Basketball Observations South's chance to retain the hoop title this year seem to be as bright as any year in the past. The seniors sen-iors are rounding into fine shape and have looked great so far in pre-season games. Although they absorbed two setbacks at the hands of Provo, last year's state champs, the A boys have looked good in every game. The team has, on the whole, nearly every quality that goes to make a championship aggregation. It has speed, flawless ball-handling, and a fair amount of height, nearly all of which rests with Ray Ecker, six foot two inch center. The rest of the boys, while not small are no more, than average with the possible exception of Fred Weidner, a guard, whose seventy-two seventy-two inches will come in mighty handy against any kind of opposition. opposi-tion. Shooters are not scarce on the team. Glen Earl, a swisher from anybody's point of view, and Mark Schwendiman, seem to be outstanding outstand-ing when it comes to piling up the points. Ray Ecker is no dud either. In fact every man on the team is a good shooter. Modern basketball makes this necessary. In these advanced boys, every man is a forward and every man a guard. Positions are more or less done away with. This is more noticeable in a man for man defense, de-fense, which the seniors expect to employ. In watching a basketball game one seems to pick out as the best man, the more spectacular type of player. An average person misses the steady, consistent and more less indispensable man. It takes all kinds to make a basketball bas-ketball team and the A team has them all. A good example of the spectacular man is Glen Earl, whose brand of playing is such that it attracts a great deal of attention. at-tention. The latter is exemplified in Fred Weidner or Ray Ecker. its ik 3k The Midgets again seem to possess pos-sess the power and speed that they have always displayed. Their coach, Nate Long, has been giving them the old "Long treatment" and we all know what that means. Nate has never disappointed the school with his teams and I can't possibly see how this year can be an exception. The presence of a man with the experience of Howard Smith will greatly increase the effectiveness of his already dynamic quintet. May the mighty Midgets always be just that, and we all know they will as long as we've got Nate. It takes two good coaches to turn out a team of any value. Who's the other one? The B team mentor. The boys that make up the "A" team usually come from the junior squad. Coach Wardell is the mentor men-tor with all that responsibility at South. Last year he did a commendable com-mendable job, as his juniors not only upheld their end of the deal but have come up now to bolster ' the A squad greatly. Maybe you've been wondering how to tell these "physical geniuses" genius-es" when you see them. Just remember re-member if they've got much hair they don't play basketball. |