Cagers Face Lions Tonight

The Harvard basketball team takes its final road trip of the season this weekend with hopes of polishing off Columbia and Cornell to gain at least a tie for third place in the Ivy League.

The Crimson, currently tied with Brown and Dartmouth for third with a 6-6 record, meets seventh-place Columbia tonight for an 8 p.m. game in New York, and finishes the season tomorrow night against cellar-dweller Cornell in Ithaca.

To attain sole possession of third place, the Crimson must win both its games while Dartmouth, which meets Cornell and Columbia (in that order), must drop one of its two games. Brown, which meets Penn and Princeton this weekend, must do the impossible--beat both of them--to assure itself of at least a tie for third.

As if third place in the League standings weren't enough incentive, Harvard also has a chance to finish among the nation's top ten rebounding teams if it maintains its 54.8 rebounds-per-game average.

It also has a chance to break the old Harvard record for the most consecutive Ivy League wins. Its current six-game winning streak ties the old record, set last winter. A win against the Lions would establish a new one.

Columbia, which lost to Princeton last weekend by only three points, will be doing everything it can to see that the Crimson doesn't set any new records.

The Lions pushed Harvard into double overtime two weeks ago, and it took a 15-foot jumper at the buzzer by Marshall Sanders to give the Crimson the win. Tonight they will have the home court advantage, and, with the fans in University Gymnasium sitting on the out-of-bounds lines, Harvard will have its hands full.

"The court has definitely got to work in their favor," coach Bob Harrison said yesterday, "but I hope that the momentum we gained from our last game will help us overcome it."

The last game was Oral Roberts, and the Crimson, pounding the boards and working for the good shot, played its best game of the season even though it lost, 100-99.

Harvard stayed in the game against the Titans on the strength of its rebounding, and rebounding will again be the key tonight. In their previous meeting, Harvard and Columbia battled to a tie under the boards--a fact that still causes the Crimson some embarrassment.

But if Floyd Lewis (20 rebounds against ORU), James Brown (19 against ORU), and Tony Jenkins (15 against ORU) do the job on the boards again tonight, the Crimson should break the game open early and leave New York with their seventh straight League win.