Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-03-03
CIV Heavy Favorife
Over Davidson as
NTourneY0pens
By George Huber
Sior StaH Correspondent

RICHMOND, Mar. 3.-George
Washington starts defense of its
Southern Conference basketball
championship tonight. taking on
Davidson in the first game Of a
night double header that winds
up with Richmond against VIII
liam and Mary. Game time for
CIV at the Richmond Arena is
1880 pm.
The afternoon openers are
Furman against Washington and
Lee and West Virginia against
Virginia Military.
This has the makings of a very
wide-open tournament, although
the coaches have gone through
the motions Of picking CIV as
the team to beat. One Of them,
however. Les Hooker Of Rich
mond, says his team is in shape
to beat the Colonials in the semi
finals, providing. Of course. both
win their first-round tests.
Only Davidson and Virginia
Military are conceded little
chance of advancing to the
championship.
W&L-Furman Tops Gard.
The best game of the first
round could come right at the
start when No. 4 team, Wash
ington G. Lee, meets No. S,
Furman. WSL has been the
hottest team in the last half
of the season, winning nine Of
its last II games, some of them
over rather good opposition.
Furman is the highest-scoring
team in the country, and has
the highest individual scorer in
Darrell Floyd.
The winner Of this game goes
against West Virginia. leader
during the regular season with
a 81 conference record, in the
semiflnals tomorrow, unless the
Mountaineers run into unex-
pected trouble from VMI in
their opener.
West Virginia and CIV both
figure to be easy winners in the
first round. however, and the
pairings are such they would
meet in the final If there are no
upsets along the way.
Tonight's windup between
Richmond and William & Mary
also could be a corker. They
split two games during the
regular season, with the Indians
taking their last engagement,
93-78, last Saturday at Williams
burg. Richmond may have an
edge on its own floor, but not
enough to make the Spiders
much more than a slim favorite.
Tough Defense of Title.
George Washington is taking
a go conference record and a
22-5 overall mark into the tour
nament. Last season the Colo
malls went in with a 100 con-
ference record and worked to
the title without too much
trouble, but things figure to be
different this time.
During the regular campaign
the ColoAials were beaten by
Richmond, which they also beat
twice (once in a nonconference
game) and West Virginia, which
they met only once, at West
Virginia.
CIV is figured as the best
team in the tournament because
of it's scoring balance. Corky
Devlin and Joe Holup. the big
scoring guns all season, have
been topped in several games by
Joe Petcavich and Petcavich, in
fact, holds the school record for
one game.
Buzz Ciriello, another member
of the starting five, can score
when necessary. as he showed in
the first Maryland game when
he dumped in "a points. The
fifth man, George Klein, has no
fancy scoring record merely be-
cause he rarely shoots. But any
of the first five can be counted
on to get the points almost any
time they're needed, and vino
will do it may be decided by what
style of play Coach Bill Rein
hart elects to use.
Reinhart has changed his Of
fensive and defensive patterns
numerous times this season, Of
ten several times during a game.
1t makes the Colonials doubly
dangerous because the opposition
never knows what to expect.