Basketball's Best

The college basketball season rolled into high. After two tune-up games, Chicago's De Paul five (last year's U.S. team No. 2) tangled with mighty Oklahoma A. & M. (last year's team No. 1). The feature: a man-to-man duel between the game's tallest and most talented centers, De Paul's 6-ft. 9 George Mikan, Aggies' 7-ft. Bob Kurland. The score: De Paul 46, Aggies 42.

That intersectional tiff last week set basketball in motion everywhere. The prospects: 1) attendance would soar, 2) so would bookmakers' hopes; 3) a new rule, prohibiting a player from re-entering the game after being withdrawn in the final four minutes, would speed up the already breakneck pace of modern basket ball; 4) beanpoles would again be the season's glamor boys; 5) Notre Dame's powerhouse would be chief contender for this year's team No. i.

When Coach Elmer Ripley (late of Yale, Georgetown and Columbia) arrived in South Bend this fall, he stumbled over players of all sizes, shapes and talents. For lack of uniforms, he cut some 170 likely prospects (including many an All-State) from the squad. His hand-picked squad included three of the greatest scorers Coach Ripley had ever seen -- unorthodox ex-Navyman Leo ("Crystal") Klier, who winds up like a pretzel when he shoots; the lofty (6-ft. 5) and more orthodox Vince Boryla; hot-shooting ex-football quarterback George Ratterman.

Substitutes & Challengers. Behind his No. 1 five, Ripley had a second team almost as good. A notch farther back, he had a tall set of third-stringers. Rivals the Irish couldn't outclass they could easily outman.

But at least a dozen razor-sharp teams, all well-heeled with beanpoles and returned G.I.s, waited anxiously for the top three to slip. The chief challengers:

P: Iowa's high-riding Hawkeyes, with two 6-ft. 5 Wilkinson brothers--Herb and Clay--were odds-on to keep their Big Ten title. Stiff est opposition: Ohio State's 1945 runner-up Buckeyes.

P:: Wyoming had mighty Milo Komenich and wing-footed Jim Weir back after two absentee seasons, between them they could put any team in the national running. P: Arkansas would have its way in the Southwest as long as 6-ft. 10 George Kok could jump, look down and drop a ball in the basket.

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