1/2/1963

Wildcat Reserves Flex Muscles In UA's 82-47 Rout

By CARL PORTER

Arizona basketball, much like a young weight lifter training toward the Olympics, seems to pop up with some new muscles every night.

Take last night, when the boys on the bench flexed their biceps as the Wildcats strong-armed an anemic-looking crew of Hamline Pipers, 82-47, at Bear Down Gym.

It was Arizona’s most powerful offensive showing of the season. It was win No. 7 against four defeats. And it was plenty encouraging for Coach Bruce Larson, who may well have need of reserve strength tomorrow night when he and his Wildcats attempt to overpower the rugged Texas Western Miners at El Paso.

For TWC, steam-rolling along with a 9-4 record and perhaps the greatest team in Miner history, is rapidly gaining stature as perhaps the team most likely to challenge fourth-ranked Arizona State University for area honors.

HEADING UP the El Pasoans’ long list of talent is husky Jim (Bad News) Barnes, a mammoth 6-foot-8, 240-pound junior college transfer who was second among the nation’s JC scorers last year—averaging 29.8 points per game over two years at Cameron (Okla.) Junior College.

A two-time JC All-American, he is currently 20th among major college rebounders with a 14.1 average. And backing him up are all five of TWC’s 1961-62 starters who ran up an impressive 18.6 record.

These stalwarts (and their scoring averages this season) are 6-0 Willie Brown (15.6), 6-2 Nolan Richardson (13.6), 6-4 Bobby Lesley (10.5), 6-4 Bobby Joe Hill (9.8) and 6-4 Danny Vaughn (6.3)

TOMORROW night's Texas Western tilt and a tussle with not-so-tough (2-7) New Mexico State at Las Cruces Saturday night rounds out Arizona's pre-conference campaign with the Cats opening Western Athletic Conference action next Friday night against Utah here in Tucson.

But, back to last night's heroics by the seldom-sung members of UA's basketball taxi squad.

Fourteen men, in all, got into the game for UA as Larson cleared his bench—and 13 of them scored. And the brightest performance of all came from a lad with the name for the role—sharpshooting soph Dennis Albright

Seeing extensive action for the first time this season, the former Rincon High School all-stater put on a long-distance shooting exhibition which confirms the suspicion he probably has the best eye on the squad. Albright wound up with 16 points (and would have been in the 20's had it not been for a mediocre performance at the foul stripe)—all coming in the second half as he hit 7 of 11 from the field.

CRIP SHOTS—In addition to Albright, two other ex-Tucson area prep stars, Jim Douglas and Chuck LaVetter sparkled in late relief roles. . . Hamline actually led 16-15, after 12 minutes of play, when Larson sent in his young unit of four sophs and a junior who rapidly opened up a 36-23 halftime edge . . .While the reserves stole the show late in the game, however, soph regulars Albert Johnson and Warren Rustand had fine games with 11 and 12 points respectively . . . And Johnson, playing only two-thirds of the game, was brilliant on the boards, pulling down 17 rebounds . . .