Columbia, Cornell Whip Varsity Basketball Team

Keith Sedlacek continued to perform brilliantly, but for Harvard's basketball team all the dreams of glory died this weekend.

The Crimson lost at Columbia Friday night, 36 to 77, and then on Saturday bowed to Cornell, 78 to 66. The defeats left Harvard tied for fourth place in the Ivy League with a 3-4 record.

Columbia, behind the hot shooting of Stan Felsinger and Neil Farber, led Harvard almost all the way to atone for their defeat in Cambridge last month. The Lions were ahead 42-27 at the half, and weathered a Harvard hot streak early in the second half.

The game would have been a rout had it not been for a great shooting performance by Sedlacek. The junior poured in 15 of 26 field goal attempts, scoring 35 points for the evening.

Gene Dressler, with 16 points, was the only other Crimson player in double figures. All-Ivy center Merle McClung had only six points.

Cornell's victory was their eleventh straight, and enabled the Big Red to hold onto first place in the Ivy League with a 7-0 record. Harvard never seriously threatened; Sedlacek was held to 16 points and McClung only scored 9. Second-string guard Al Bornheimer turned in one of his best performances of the season, tallying 16 points.

No Disgrace

Losing to Cornell was no disgrace, of course, and Harvard at least had the consolation that the defeat was not quite as humiliating as the Big Red's 91-53 win at the IAB.

But the loss to Columbia almost doomed any hopes the Crimson may have of finishing in the Ivy League's first division. And things are going to get worse in the next two weeks: the Crimson has a pair of games each with Ivy power-houses Penn and Princeton.