Sport: Box-Office Blues

The decisive Big Nine basketball game of 1947 was played last week. Its surroundings made it look more like two crossroads high schools battling for a county championship.

A collapsing grandstand had interrupted the Wisconsin-Purdue game at half-time (TIME, March 10), so a playoff of the second half was ordered. Wisconsin, which could clinch the title by winning, had to begin last week’s half-game with its star, Walt Lautenbach, already four-fifths of the way out on fouls.

With so much at stake, everybody figured that there was no sense trying to get a seat in the little Evanston (ILL.) high school gym (cap. 2,500), which had been selected as neutral ground for the second half playoff. Result: only 1,500 showed up. Final score: Wisconsin 72, Purdue 60.

In Columbia, Mo., where there was a ban on student gatherings because of a flu epidemic, the Kansas-Missouri game (won by Kansas, 48-to-38) was attended by sportswriters, coaches, officials, substitutes—and not one fan.