Illinois, A Champion Who Substituted Balance For Stars
By EVERETT B. MORRIS (N. Y. Herald-Tribune; President, Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association)
You don't have to have a goon squad to sweep the boards, or an outstanding expert in the point production department to fill the basket. It helps, of course, but you can have a championship team without either or both. You have proof of that right here in the Garden tonight.
The "Fighting lllini" of the University of Illinois, champions of the Western Conference and representatives of District No. 4 in the N.C.A.A. play-offs, are entirely unburdened with giants or record-breaking scorers. Yet they waded through a rugged schedule with only three defeats in twenty-two games and took the Big Nine title, admittedly one of the most difficult feats in college basketball, with a IO-and-2 record.
The lllini have substituted balance and well distributed power for excessive height in one or two spots and a specialist in shotmaking. They have been
WALT KERSULIS
JIM MARKS
and that's quite ck to his
called "the team without a star all right with Harry Combes, who came Alma Mater as head coach two years ago when Doug Mills slid over into the Director of Athletics chair after the Whizz Kids had had their post-war innings.
Normally, Illinois starts a five whose tallest member is Wally (Ox) Osterkorn, 6-41/2, anc' whose shortest operator is Collier's All-America guard, Bill Erickson, 6-1. In between them are Walt (Slip) Ker-sulis, 6-4, and his running mate at forward, Jim Marks, 6-2; and Dwight (Dike) Eddelman, six feet two inches of as fine an all-round athlete as Illinois has had in many a year.
Illinois had only one man, Eddleman, among the first ten in the Big Nine scoring table, but it had eight on the list of those players who had scored fifty points or more and fifteen altogether who had put anything at all into the hoop. Eddleman had 144 points in twelve league games and 301 overall for a 13.7 average. He does most of his damage from outside, too.
He has been consistently high, hitting 20 or better six times (against Indiana, Penn, Colgate, DePaul, Northwestern and Cornell); 19 against Iowa and 18 in repeat appearances against Colgate and Northwestern.
Erickson was second to Eddleman in the scoring
department with 245 and Osterkorn had 224. Four others over the 130 mark were Sunderlage, Marks and Green.
It is difficult to beat a team with that much shooting ability because when one man is off there is always someone who can take up the slack. There is no such thing as stopping Illinois by smothering its chief scoring threat. It doesn't have any such animal.
Illinois set a Big Nine record by pouring 783 points into the cords for a 12-game average of 65.2. The old mark was 755 established by the Whiz Kids in 1943 before they all went away to war. The lllini also shared in the total points per game record when they whipped Indiana 91 to 68 and in that same rouf set a new free throw standard by canning 31 penalty shots.
The lllini's operations have been characterized by sustained drive and plenty of shooting. They don't bother much with fancy, involved plays; they take the shortest possible route to the basket and the most direct method of inducing the ball to go through the ring. Consequently in their twelve Big Nine games they took 988 field goal shots and hit with 297 of them for an average of .301. That was only the third
BILL ERICKSON WALLY OSTERKORN
best in the league but it sufficed despite the fact that its defense was the third weakest in the loop.
Shoot earlier and oftener than the other fellow and let the chips fall where they may might sum up the Illinois attacking philosophy. It paid off in blue chips this season.
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