Michigan's Basketball Team Returns Intact Next Year

THE ANN ARBOR NEWS. ANN ARBOR. MICH.

PAGE SIXTEEN WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 1948

Michigan's Basketball Team Returns Intact Next Year
Cowles Rates Team
On Par With Great
Fives At Dartmouth

By Mill Marsh

Michigan's basketball team, which clinched the undisputed Big
Nine title Monday night by beating Iowa, is a much improved team
over practically the same combination which Coach Osborne B. Cowles
piloted into fifth place in the conference race a year ago with a record
of six victories and six defeats.

The present Michigan team should be even greater a year from
now when the entire personnel is expected to return for another
season.

Don Mclntosh, Detroit youth, was the only newcomer who crashed
into the front ranks on the Cowles' team this year. Capt. Bob Harrison
and Pete Elliott, guards and Bill Mikulich, Boyd McCaslin and Gerrit
Wierda, forwards, all are juniors and have one more season of
competition.

All other players on this year's squad are sophomores with two
more years of competition ahead of them. They include Mack Suprono-
wicz, Don Mclntosh, Bill Bauerle and Joe Stottlebauer, forwards; Bill
Roberts and .Irvin Wisniewski, centers and Harold Morrill and George
Poretta, guards.

Thus, Michigan fans, who packed the Yost fieldhouse to the girders
for the final two Big Nine games with Ohio State and Iowa, can look
forward with anticipation to two more good seasons to come.

MICHIGAN TEAM RATES WITH COWLES' BEST

What does Ozzie Cowles think of this year's team?
After all, Ozzie had some pretty good teams down at Dartmouth
where he won the Eastern Intercollegiate title seven times in eight
years.

"This Michigan team rates about on a par with my championship
teams at • luth," says Cowles. "Except, that I never coached as
great ad; player as Pete Elliott. I might possibly have had com-
binations that would offset Elliott's individual ability, but certainly no
individual defensive player as great as Pete."

BIG NINE IS TOUGHER THAN IVY LEAGUE

How does the competition in the Big Nine stack up with the com-
petition in the Eastern Intercollegiate league?

"The Big Nine is a much tougher league," continues Cowles. "There
are more good teams in the Big Nine than in the eastern circuit. The
personnel in both leagues runs about the same and the size of the
players about the same. But, out here any one of the conference teams
might pin your ears back while in the east there are not so many top-
notch teams in the Ivy league."

Taking a team to the NCAA at Madison Square Garden is nothing
new for Cowles. He took three of his Dartmouth teams to the Garden
and in 1941 rc"^^ the NCAA finals where his team lost to Stanford.

As to th ating in the two leagues, Cowles feels that the
officiating in »..^ ^—at is better than it is in the midwest, especially in
the Garden games.

Kentucky and Holy Cross already have accepted offers to compete
in the NCAA tournament. New York U is debating whether to accept
a bid to the NCAA or to the Garden invitational tournament. Four
eastern teams, which may include Michigan, will meet March 18 in the
NCAA play at the Garden. The winners play on March 20. Then the
eastern champion will oppose the winner of the western division in the
NCAA finals on March 23. The western division holds its eliminations
at Kansas City.