The Game Goes On

Just as if nothing at all had happened to big-time basketball this winter, Madison Square Garden staged its National Invitation Tournament last week. Some of the headliners of other years were missing, however. The nation's two top teams, Kentucky and Oklahoma A. & M., passed up invitations in favor of the N.C.A.A. tournament this week. Bradley University decided to run a tournament of its own. Long Island University, with three of its stars out on bail, doesn't play basketball any more. Nonetheless, the invitation final between Brigham Young and Dayton brought out 18,379 fans, the largest crowd of the year at the Garden.*

Before the game, the Mormons from Brigham Young (enrollment: 5,500) had prayer in the locker room. As usual, the Skyline Conference champions (24-7) did not pray for victory; they simply asked God to help them play like good sports--and to the best of their ability. Dayton, dubbed the "Cinderella" team of the tournament after upsetting top-seeded St. John's of Brooklyn and fourth-seeded Arizona, just hoped the slipper would continue to fit. For a while it almost did.

In the first half, Dayton's hard-driving Style of play held Brigham Young almost perfectly even. In the second half, Dayton was still very much in the game (35-30) when Brigham Young suddenly broke the game wide open. The buster-upper: Roland Minson, 22, a spring-legged six-footer and the smallest regular on the floor. In three minutes, using its famed fingertip passing and its whippet speed, Brigham Young ran up 15 points, nine of them by Jack Rabbit Minson. During this spree, Dayton was so intent on stopping Minson that it scored precisely one point for Dayton. Final score: 62-43.

After the victory celebration, in which Minson's high of 26 points won him the most-valuable-player award, Brigham Young Coach Stan Watts began to think about the N.C.A.A. tournament, in which his team is also entered. Said Watts with professional pessimism: "The boys looked kind of ragged to me." Minson & Co., he thought, would have to be a lot sharper to win the N.C.A.A. title. Naturally, they will be praying that they do their best.

* Where basketball attendance figures are down 25% for the season.

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