Late of Kentucky

Even before the four outstanding stars of the University of Kentucky's great basketball team graduated last spring, there was a rush by the pros to draft them. The rush was firmly but politely repulsed: the boys who had won two N.C.A.A. titles and helped represent the U.S. in the 1948 Olympic games in London wanted to stay together as pros. With a Lexington, Ky. newspaperman as their president, general manager and publicity director, they took over the Indianapolis franchise in the newly formed National Basketball Association and became co-owners and star performers.

At Indianapolis a fortnight ago, as the Indianapolis Olympians, the Kentuckians made their pro debut and won, 71-64. Then they lost two games. Last week in Madison Square Garden, scene of their greatest college triumphs, the Olympians played the New York Knickerbockers before 18,135 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a Garden pro basketball game, and put on a crack demonstration. Towering (6 ft. 7 in., 220 lbs.) Alex Groza went on a snapshooting tear and scored 41 points. Every time he let the ball go it seemed to swish through the hoop. The best his two talented associates--Ralph Beard and "Wah Wah" Jones--could do was score nine points apiece (the fourth old Kentuckian, Cliff Barker, is the coach). At the end of 48 hair-raising minutes of play, the Olympians had squeezed past the Knickerbockers, 83-79.

The main problem facing the Olympians in the pro league was rounding up some adequate substitutes. Iron Man Groza could not keep on playing without relief as he did in the Garden and again the next night in Philadelphia, when he helped subdue the Warriors and their high-scoring star, Joe Fulks, 91-84.

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