Cornell

It looks like another long winter in Ithaca as Cornell lost to Syracuse by 27 points on Saturday. The Big Red are bolstered by Mike Schaeffer and Steve Decker, who formerly were respectively enrolled at Mercer Junior College and Joliet Junior College.

Dartmouth

The linchpin of Gary Walters' Dartmouth squad is senior center Sterling Edmonds. Edmonds relied on his silken shot to average 17.4 points last season and was named to the All-Ivy second team.

Detroit

The hoopsters play Detroit, coached by Dick Vitale, in the first round of the Motor City Classic over Christmas vacation. Led by bluechipper Kevin Long, the Titans are ranked 18th in the nation by SI. Detroit posted a 25-4 mark last season, the best in the school's history and defeated NCAA champ Marquette and NIT titlist St. Bonaventure en route to winning 21 consecutive games. The streak was snapped by Michigan in the NCAA tourney before the largest television audience ever to watch a sports event in the state.

Fordham

Fordham basketball is surviving on the zeitgeist of the glory day of "the Digger" when Frank McLaughlin was assistant coach. Frentic head coach Dick Stewart writhed through the Rams' 17 losses in their last 18 games last season. The Crimson make it a New York twinbill when they play the Rams the night after the CCNY game.

Holy Cross

Harvard plays Holy Cross away on Tuesday, December 17. The Crusaders went 33-6 last year led by 6-ft., 2-in. Ronnie Perry, the leading scoring freshman in the country with a 23 point average 6-ft., 5-in. Mike Vicens held Phil Hubbard to one field goal when HC played Michigan last year while senior Chris Potter led the team in assists and rebounds last campaign.

Penn

Chuck Daly vacated the coaching helm of Penn to join Billy Cunningham and the Philadelphia 76ers and has been succeeded by Bob Weihauer, who will be assisted by former Quaker standout Ron Haigler. Penn was second in the Ivies last year going 18-8 overall. The greatest boon Weihauer will receive is 6-ft., 6-in. senior Kevin McDonald, the premiere player of the Ivies who averaged 21.2 a game last year.

Princeton

Pete Carril's Princeton quintet is the odds-on favorite to defend their Ivy League crown. The Tigers were the stingiest team on defense in the nation last year giving up an average of only 51.7 points a game. Carril has four starters back including deadly peripheral shooters Bill Sowinski, guard Bill Omeltchenko, and 6-ft., 8-in. junior center Bob Roma.

UConn

The Crimson tussles with the Huskies on January 14. UConn's new coach is Dom Perno and Joey Whelton looks to be a new scoring sensation in the mold of the graduated Tony Hanson.

UMass

UMass is led by a triad of New York City players. Alex Eldridge was the most heavily recruited player from the city in 1972 and he is joined by fellow seniors Mike Pyatt and Derrick Claiborne.

Yale

Yale has five lettermen returning but sophomores Frank Maturo and Amhony Curry are expected to fill two of the starting positions.