Not Muscle, Just Russell

In Northwestern University's mammoth McGaw Fieldhouse last week, 11,000 fans got a lively demonstration of the difference between the simple scoring of points and the winning of basketball games. In one round, Temple University's Hal "King" Lear set a single game record of 48 points, but in the end his team was able to place only third in the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament. In the big game, San Francisco's incomparable Bill Russell, while lazily turning in 26 points against Iowa, spent most of his time dancing in the air like a joyous giraffe and slapping Hawkeye shots out of basket range. The outcome: the San Francisco Dons won their 55th straight victory, their second straight N.C.A.A. championship, and unblemished claim to the title of best college basketball team in the U.S.

Big (6 ft. 10 in.) Bill Russell (TIME, Jan. 9) wasted no energy in fast, fancy breaks down court or wild jumps after every rebound. Flatfooted, he let others fight for balls that bounced out of his reach, but every time there was half a chance of getting his giant palm between an Iowa shot and the basket, that palm was there. Russell's teammates took it easy, too, passed and wove in careful patterns until Russell was in place in the slot, then attacked. When they missed, the Russell palm was there to tap the shot in. It was all so smooth and so exasperating to the Hawkeyes that they finally broke down into just the kind of basketball they had disdained all season: wild, promiscuous shots in an effort to score. Behind at the half, they never caught up. Final score: San Francisco 83, Iowa 71.

Next afternoon, in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, the final of the National Invitation Tournament turned into a sharpshooting contest between Dayton's Flyers and the Louisville Cardinals. Through the first half both teams ran and shot, ran and shot; the lead changed hands almost as often as the ball. Then the Flyers ran out of gas. Louisville piled up a big lead, changed their pattern from run and shoot to shoot and stall and let the Flyers' best men foul themselves out. For the fourth time in five N.I.T. contests Dayton lost in the finals. Score: 93-80.

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