Welcome home the conquering heroes! You’ve got to hand it to those green and gold clad varsity basketball men. They survived the initial Inland Empire trip very nicely thank you, grabbing three wins out of four scheduled games. As a result of this fabulous accomplishment, our victory kids are sunning themselves high atop the northern division standings of the Pacific Coast conference. And now a garland of honeysuckle to the youngest member of the Duck traveling contingent . . . Yezzir, laddies, a broadside for Roger Wiley, the freshman sen p.tion who can paper his walls with the adjectives that he has acquired during the past two weeks. Our eyes are focused on tine coming week-end, when the cage customers of this neck of the woods will be served a chef s special of a double-header of casaba action, a two-game court series which pits the rampaging Ducks against the plat inum plated Washington Huskies. They sold our Ducks down the river, m pre-season wrangling. Nope, Oregon didn’t have an outside look at the never-never championship land. But here we are, four games played, three won, and the Huskies knocking at the door. It's a hit early in the week to be going overboard for a winner, but we’ll start the advance publicity rolling by saying that Friday and Saturday night you're going to see two of the sweetest basketball games for the duration. Speaking of Travel Through the channels of a column called “Sideline Slants” a\e glanced over a Stanford University sport department ex planation of that august institution’s recent holiday basketball to the Sugar Bowl. It seems that Mr. James S. Ivearns of Chicago Sun wasn’t too happy about the Indian cagers fly ing south via the rails for that melon encounter with the Great Lakes quintet at the Sports Carnival. Mr. Kearns stated that 400,000 lives were lost because these teams took valuable space on trains at a time when the OUT asked everyone to refrain from using transportation facilities. A\ hat Mr. Kearns’ article does not mention is the fact that the two outfits went directly to New Orleans to eng'age in a game that was played solely for Navy Relief. In other words, both teams had the official sanction of the ODT. And with this ex planation. the Stanford U. article neatly closes. How About the Others? AY e doubt very much if such a similar excuse could be dreamed up by Oregon State, AVashington State, and the Uni versity of Southern California. That trio of basketball giants rode the Pullman service out east and through the mid-west on a casaba junket that piled up mileage like the proverbial rolling stone, sans moss. A number of colleges and universities throughout the ^^and cancelled their cage personal appearance tours this year, due to ODT regulations. But not so OSC, WSC and USC . . . Pardon us, while we continue to softly whistle in the dark. . . . hour new military rumors have sprung up overnight, even after our column of the other day. AVe knew there would be more, gossip and unfounded chatter, so we-won’t even- take the trouble to print this propaganda. • So Soon ■ Those terrible Trojans of USC have practically sewed up the southern division race even at this early date. Under the present schedule set-up south of the border, the men from old Troy, have only to face.Stanford.once more, having already beaten the Indians once, and the California Bears twice. Therefore, the only team left which has a prayer is UCLA. The Bruins, in their only outing thus far conked their Berkeley cousins from U.C. and now they await the ^^approaching four game series with USC. But the newspaper gentlemen down south have been some what irked by this minimized conference fare, so they have painted a new loop, a seven-team affair which includes besides Stanford and California, the University of San Francisco, St. Marys College, Santa Clara, Naval Pre-Flight of St. Marys and the Coast Guard boys of Alameda, California. No one besides the pencil pushers has endorsed this new league, the instiga tion of which was a bay area sports publicity release. Homesick Anyway, figure Southern Cal to cop the coveted bunting in no uncertain terms. USC’s club this year is somewhat devoid of its usual out-of-state talent. It got so the opposition had a chance in a hoop contest with the Trojans, whenever they be gan to heckle the L.A. kids by singing “AA^ay Back in Old Indi «a." The Troy basketballers stopped in their tracks on the newood boards and wept because they were downright'home sick. But along came a smooth shaven gen by the monicker of Edwin G. Atherton, (remember that name for posterity), and USC was forced to clean house on its “visiting” cage material. .........■NH»imiiiiiiiiiiuiiiniiiiimiiiiimimiiLiMimmiimHiiini»HwnimimiBiiui»ui»imiif|f Betas -Snatch Late Victory; Delts Whip Sigma Hallers STILL IN HEAVY ACTION . . . . . . George “Porky” Andrews, former all-conference Oregon cage sfar, is doing his job for the Canadian Air Forces these days. Nelson, Huestis Grab Swim Trial Honors; Others Slump By ItOLLIE GABEL In direct contrast with preced ing swim trial's, last Saturday’s trials over at the pool displayed unsatisfactory results as far as Coach Mike Hayman was con cerned, in that the boys- did not produce, or rather cut down their times as much as their tutor would have liked. There were, however, two bright spots that illuminated the rather dim-out gloom that hung over he pool at the conclusion of the time trials. These constella tions shone in the drops of times in backstroker Ralph Huestis, and breastroker Chuck Nelson. Hues tist did his 100-yard breast stroke in one minute, four seconds flat, with the record time being one minute, five 3-10 seconds. This marks the second time that Ralph has broken the record by a sec ond or less. Chuck Nelson, in his 100-yard backstroke time did one minute, four 3-10 seconds; The record, held by Wetmore, is one minute four seconds flat. Be tween the boys, Huestis is one minute, 3-10 seconds under the record, although the record' slash is as yet unofficial, and Nelson is 3-10 of a second over the back stroke record. Ideal Conditions An important point about these new times is that Huestis and Nelson made these marks (Please turn to Paae Seven) A L .AIMER AND HIS COACH . . . . . . Jerry Huestis, former Webfoot swimming ace, received his train ing under present varsity coach Mike Hoyman, who is busy polishing off the rough edges of his 1942 team. With the issue always in doubt, the Beta and Fiji “A” quintets battled from the opening tip-off to the final whistle with never more than three points separating the two teams. When the regular time was up, everyone in the gym turned expectantly toward the scorekeepers, holding their breath while the men with the books feverishly totaled field goi's and free throws to compute the final score. Then came the final score: Betas, 17, Fijis, 17. The two teams already weary from the close struggle, girded themselves for an overtime pe riod. The battle continued several minutes with neither five able to find the bucket until lanky “Si” Sidesinger swished a beautiful shot giving the Betas the decision by a 19 to 17 score. Sidesinger Shines Reid Ferral and Bill McKevitt kept the Beta Crew in the game constantly, scoring seven and six points respectively, while Bryce Sidesinger and George Blake car ried the brunt of the Fiji scor ing with six and' five points apiece. Summary: Betas Fredericks, 3 F Jayne, 1...F Sidesinger, 6 . C Farmer, 2.. G. Jackson, 2.G. Conlin Blake, 5.S Referees: Jim Shephard, Roger Dick. Fijis 7, R. Ferral 2, B. Ferral 0, McKevitt 2, Heidenrich Pigskin Characteristics The score looked like football, The play looked like football, and there was Dick Ashcom's name in the lineup, but still it was a basketball game. The Delta Tau Delta “55” bas ketball squad managed ti> ‘ out plunge” the Sigma hall squad for the first half and then, wiih a last effort, fought off a second half sustained drive by the inde pendents to nab a close victory, 10 to 7. The Delts, with Welbourne and Stanley doing most of the scor ing, led at half-time by an 8 to 1. count, and then staved off a last half scoring spree by Sigma. Far oher, a substitute forward did most of the scoring for the liall men, tallying five out of seven points. Dick Ashcom, Sigma spon sor, acted as player-coach for his outfit. Summary: DTD, 10 Sigma hall, 7 Welbourne, 4....F. Kinersky Eekleman, 2.F...".:,i. Landreth Roberts...... C.. Holland Barnett.. Ashcom Stanley, 4.,. G. Growning Keife...S. DuMont Hofstetter.S.... 5, Faroher Maise...S.. Rogers S. 2, Landreth S. Sher nan Feferees: Roger Dick, Jim Shephard1. Today’s games: 4:00 Court 40—Omega hall “A” vs. Phi Delta Theta “A” Court 43—Alpha Tau Omega “A” vs. Sigma hall "A” 4:40 court 43—Sigma Phi Ep silon “B” vs. Law School "B ’ 5:20 Court 40—Sigma Alpha Mu “A” vs. Phi Sigma Ks.ppa “A” Court 43—Delta Upsilon “B” Referees: Roger Dick, Jim Oregon Trail Featured The Old Oregon Trail is feat ured in the January release: of the Junior Historical Journal, distributed to schools of the Pa cific Northwest and edited by Dean Alfred Powers of the di versity extension center at PorTfc land.