Stop St. Louis!

If there was a better college basketball team anywhere than the Billikens of St. Louis University, the Billikens hadn't met it yet. In New Orleans last month, they unhorsed the University of Kentucky wonders.* Back home in St. Louis, ticket-sellers turned away 4,000 customers the night they beat Bradley University. In Buffalo, before another sellout house, they trounced Canisius. Last week, with nine straight victories under their belts, the Billikens moved into Madison Square Garden to play Long Island University--and pulled out the biggest crowd (18,486) of the season.

The question was how to stop them. Confessed L.I.U.'s famed Coach Clair Bee: "Why should I pay $100 for a scouting report when I know everything there is to be known about them. [They're] terrific." He sent his men into a zone defense, a desperation move.

Mutt & Jeff. St. Louis began shooting L.I.U.'s zone full of holes with speed and fancy fingertip passing. On the bench sat tough, little (5 ft. 6 in.) Ed Hickey, once a practicing lawyer, now the brain of the Billikens. Coach Hickey wasn't nervous (he said). Always at close hand was his briefcase, crammed with diagrammed plays, notes and scouting reports. The other man who made the Billikens go was towering (6 ft. 8 in.) Charles Edward

("Easy Ed") Macauley, the All-America with the face of a choir boy. They complemented each other like Mutt & Jeff.

On any given night, Pivotman Macauley was good for at least 18 points a game. But because L.I.U. double-teamed him (he had two men guarding him), he didn't bother to shoot much. He just kept feeding the ball to the open man. The Billikens led at half time 38-20, and the crowd was disappointed when they didn't pour it on in the second half. But the Billikens were content just to win (58-47). Macauley had scored only 10 points, but he had set up most of the rest.

Ripples & Barrel Rolls. Two years ago, when Hickey first came to St. Louis U., he inherited a team of St. Louis boys (all his first-team men this year are local products). Then he taught them his basketball axiom: "It is a game of a million situations." He kept a piece of chalk handy and was forever getting on one knee to sketch new situations on the floor. His basic offense was a fast break that could evolve into a ripple of finger-tip passes that he called a Barrel Roll, or "a million" other combinations. Men like Macauley and Forward Joe Ossola helped make Hickey's theories work.

Easy Ed Macauley, 20, the best college basketball player in sight this season, seems part giraffe and part gazelle. Deadly with his one-armed hook shots, he is even better on defense. Against Holy Cross, he held talented George Kaftan scoreless from the floor; for one period he did the same thing to Kentucky's great Alex Groza. To opponents, his nonchalance is frustrating. In the Canisius game, the enemy's pivot man tried guarding Ed too closely. Result: the Canisius star wound up on the bench in tears, out of the game on personal fouls with 14 minutes to play.

The Double Upper. How long could the Billikens stay unbeaten?* Said Hickey: "To continue unbeaten would be a miracle." Still ahead were 15 tough games, two of them with Oklahoma A. & M., which whipped St. Louis twice last year (in two of the three games the Billikens lost all season). But on the train ride back to St. Louis the Billikens weren't thinking much about losing. They had some classwork to bone up on. As usual en route, Easy Ed slept in two upper berths made up specially to accommodate his long legs.

At week's end, the Billikens won again, but not without coming close to a comeuppance. They barely squeaked past steamed-up Drake University, 52-51.

*N.C.A.A. champions who filled five of the 14 berths on last year's U.S. Olympic squad; St. Louis, Invitation Tournament champions, did not compete in the Olympics trials--they were ordered back to the books.

*Other major unbeatens: Western Kentucky, Hamline, Minnesota, Villanova.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.