Basketball

Basketball has a larger following than any other U. S. sport. All winter, between football's finale and baseball's opener, a great part of the nation is entertained by some 70,000 basketball teams--in creaky town halls, glossy gymnasiums, magnificent college field houses. Last week the 1939-40 basketball season drew to a close with three "national" tournaments going on simultaneously.

Collegiate. At Indianapolis and Kansas City eight of the top college teams in the country fought it out in the Eastern and Western play-offs for the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship. At Indianapolis, in the final of the Eastern Division playoffs, Indiana University (runner-up to Purdue in the Big Ten Conference) trounced Pittsburgh's Duquesne (defeated only once in 18 games during the season), 39-to-30. At Kansas City in the last round of the Western Division playoffs, the University of Kansas (Big Six co-champions) nosed out the University of Southern California (champions of the Pacific Coast Conference), 43-to-42. This week, Indiana will go to Kansas City for the final of what many fans consider the national collegiate championship.*

Amateur. At mile-high Denver, 50 amateur teams (representing colleges, clubs and business organizations) pounded the boards of the City Auditorium for a week. When the field narrowed to two, the finalists in the 33rd national A.A.U. championship were the same as last year: the Denver Nuggets, defending champions, and the Phillips 66 Oilers of Bartlesville, Okla. While 7,000 fans whooped, the Phillips turned the tables, tarnished the Nuggets, 39-to-36.

Professional. At Chicago, addicts packed the Madison Street Armory to watch 14 teams compete for the title of "world's professional champion." Enticing more & more college stars each year--including Stanford's Hank Luisetti, Syracuse's Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, Dartmouth's Bob MacLeod--professional basketball is staging a comeback after a decade of eclipse by brilliant college teams.

In last week's world's championship final, the Chicago Bruins, owned by Pioneer Promoter George Halas (who also owns the professional football-playing Chicago Bears), and the Harlem Globetrotters, owned by Chicago's Abe Saperstein ("the Mike Jacobs of Negro sports"), put on the best show of the week. With only five minutes to play, the Bruins were leading 29-to-21. Then, with a blitzkrieg of crazy passing and shooting, the dipsy-doo Globetrotters bombarded the baskets, won the game (31-to-29), the title and $1,800 first-prize money.

For the nomadic Globetrotters, No. 1 Negro basketball team in the U. S., it was the 130th victory in 132 games this season, the 1,840th victory since the team was organized 13 years ago. Traveling by bus, they cover 35,000 miles a year, attract 350,000 spectators. In all games their technique is the same: to try to get eight or ten points ahead of their opponents, and then exhibit their fancy ball handling, such as spinning the ball on fingertips, flipping it between legs, rolling it up one arm and down the other. Star stunt man is 37-year-old Inman Jackson, a 6 ft. 3 in. 200-pounder, who serves as the only substitute on the team, gets $300 a month plus a percentage of the gate receipts.

* Another claimant to the national championship is the National Invitation College Tournament, inaugurated three years ago by the New York Basketball Writers Association. Last fortnight, when six of the country's first-raters competed in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, the University of Colorado, Big Seven champions for the past three years, proved best, defeating Duquesne in the last round, 51-to-40.

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