Forte, Last-Minute Rally Send Varsity Quintet to Two Losses

The Harvard basketball team left Cambridge Friday afternoon leading the country in defensive statistics, leading the Ivy League with a 2-0 record, and with a commendable 5-1 overall season's mark. It returned yesterday with none of its former distinctions, and with two unfortunate defeats to show for its twoday journey.

Friday night the varsity suffered a humiliating setback at the hands of Columbia's one-man team, Chet Forte, 80-61, and the following night blew a contest to Pennsylvania in the last minute of play, 65-63.

Against Columbia, Forte was the entire story. When he was not driving around Crimson defenders to pop in jump shots, or extending his current free throw shooting mark, he was passing off to unguarded teammates for easy goals.

Forte put Columbia out of reach in the middle of the first half, with 14 points in less than 10 minutes. He finished with 30 in all, scoring 14 points on as many foul shots to run his record to 32 straight free throws.

Behind 41 to 25 at the half, the Crimson held the Blue and White almost even in the second half, but could never get back into contention. Columbia was outrebounded and outshot, but more than made up for this with speed, accuracy, and Forte. As a team, it put in 36 out of 45 free throws, sinking the first shot in the one-and-one series 14 times.

Coach Floyd Wilson said that the basic problem of the team was that it did not possess "one very good, consistent outside shooter." To illustrate he showed that the four Crimson guards between them scored only 6 of 33 shots from the field, to compare with the 8 baskets Forte himself tallied.

In the Penn game, however, Harvard did come up with an outside scorer, Bob Hastings, but still lost the ballgame. Despite Hastings 25 points, poor, tired playing in the final minutes cost the varsity its third league victory.

Going into the last two minutes the Crimson held a four point lead. But one lost ball, and two missed shots gave the Quakers three scoring opportunities, and they capitalized each time. Jack Fellman, a substitute guard, scored the final two baskets on driving lay-ups to make the difference.

Hastings scored from all over, in playing his best game of the season. He was a man Wilson had counted on, and his play greatly encouraged the coach. "We will be a tough team to beat if we get more games like that from Hastings," he said.

Wilson attributed this loss to costly mistakes, many caused by last minute tiredness. "They showed the effects of the night before," he added. Also, for the first time this year, the team fared poorly off the backboards. Again, in this contest, the Crimson got off the most shots, but its accuracy could not match Penn's excellent 23 for 49 or 47 per cent.

With the defeats, the team's record dropped to 5 and 3, and its leadership in defensive averages and Ivy League play disappeared for good. The loss to Penn was especially disappointing, as it was one team that Harvarda hd figured to beat