Omaha daily bee., 1903-02-08
7. M. C. A. BASKET BALL
Team stiII strong asd Confident of .
Good Place I'm Seasons
standing.


Members of the basket bsu team Of the
Young Mems Christian association in Omaha
are still Illuminating over their defeat last
Tuesday night by a team so decidedly their
inferior All the boys realize that they
were way OF form. and that none Of them.
save perhaps Hansen at center, was play
ing his average game. Even at that the
athletes are unable to understand how q
team that they had outclassed 80 decidedly
all season on form and comparative scores
Gould snatch a victory from them.
In this connection II lie interesting to note
the scores made at basket ball in the trans
missouri country since the season opened
on January /. First Of all, the local asso-
citation team overwhelmed the Lincoln as
sOciBtiOn boys here on January 2, by a
score Of "a to u. Next the Lincoln asso-
citation team defeated the University OF Ne
brRska 10 to 10. Next the Haskell Indians
came NORTH and stopped Of at Lincoln for
two games. There they swamped the var
sity team, 30 to is, and also won from the
Lincoln association boys, % to p. That
was on Friday and Saturday nights, JRnu-
airy II and is. Leaving that windfRll in
their wake the Indians came on to Omaha
to meet the association team here Oh jan
uary p, The Omahans had no hopes Of
winning. but they did, and by q big score,
p to IL.
Then and not till then people began to
consider the Omaha aggregation as a cham
pionship team. They had doubled the score
on the strongest team in the west, Rnu
they bid fair to run a clean card Of vic
tories for the season. And then came the
Kansans They, too stopped on in Lin
coin, and they played the same teams as
Haskell. being defeated by both The Lin
coin association beat the Jayhawkers 30
to 22. while the University Of Nebraska
won, 2S TO is. Naturally, the Omaha boys
felt mighty confident against such q grade
Of teams as the one indicated by the scores.
And ii may have been this overconhdence
that got away with them. Anyway, the
visitors did them up last Tuesday night,
rs to "a, Just enough to win, but a vic
tory none the less.
No one thinks. however, that the decided
slump shown by the Omaha boys last week
is any prsage of a permanent falling of
IN form, or that it was anything more
rious than an of day. II is confidently ex-
pected by the supporters of the team hat
the men will hereafter show their former
prowess. Even at that. that defeat was a
slap in the face as far as western cham
pionship honors are concerned, for Kansas
Can certainly not claim the supremacy in
the trRnsmissouri country, having won
only one game, yet neither can the omahans
/ lay claim TO the lRurels. having been de-
fcRted by Kansas, the team that has made
/ the weakest showing Of any.
! The only way TO satisfactorily settle the
matter is for Omaha TO secure a return
game with the JRyhawkers on their own
! field and let that contest determine the
! whole business. The team goes south late
this month to meet the Haskell Indians at
! Lawrence, Kan, and the team of William
Jewell college at Liberty, No. and might
arrange a game with Kansas while in Law
renee on that trip. Should the Gate City
men win. they will then be free to proceed
with their final games with the Fitch asso-
| citation team OF Denver The result OF the
Omaha Denver games would definitely set
tie the championship of the west. while
as things now stand everything is muddled
for all the aspirants have been defeated by
weak teams and have won from strong
teams.
! The Kansas university team played n