Big Little Man

Bradley University (undergraduate enrollment: 3,341) of Peoria, Ill. has capitalized handsomely on a beguiling fact of modern athletics: a small school with old-time amateur spirit and a few basketballs can get famous as fast as a big, rich school with an expensive stadium and a whole carload of money-hungry football beeves. When Bradley basketballers ended their season by polishing off Drake University 92-63 last week, they had proved themselves the class of the Missouri Valley Conference, and one of the hottest teams in the nation.

Bradley has made Peorians wild with joy, not only by their magnificent team play, but by virtue of a kind of portable miracle: a dark-eyed, dark-haired forward named Gene ("Squeaky") Melchiorre. Squeaky is only the No. 2 point-maker of the Bradley Braves--lanky Paul Unruh, who scored 20 points against Drake, is the team's undisputed star.

But Squeaky gets the wildest huzzahs for all that: he stands only 5 ft. 8 1/2 in. Crowds, watching him warm up amid the towering giants who dominate today's basketball, expect him to be reduced to a puddle of watery chowder within minutes. Instead he makes all but the cleverest of his tall opponents look like croupy giraffes. He fizzes with belligerence, is deceptively strong (he weighs 172 Ibs.) and amazingly agile; with four years of high-school basketball, 18 months of Army basketball and two years of college play behind him, he has the faultless instincts of a professional. He has speed and endurance and despite his height can take rebounds off the backboard with larcenous regularity.

With big things behind them this year, Bradley has big things ahead; they are given a good chance to win the National Invitation Tournament at Madison Square Garden, and (if they enter) the N.C.A.A. tournament as well. But win, lose or draw, Manhattan crowds would have something to remember--Squeaky.

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