Tigers, Penn Crush Five; Cagers at M. I. T. Tonight

When the Harvard basketball team plays M. I. T. tonight at Rockwell Cage, it will have a chance to bounce back from a pair of humiliating defeats to Princeton and Penn this past weekend.

The Engineers, 4-7 so far, are led by 5'7" guard Minot Cleveland who is aver aging 23 points a game. The Crimson, now 5-9, has a height advantage over M. I. T. and a better running game. But Harvard, if it continues to shoot at a low percentage, may have trouble against the Engineers that it shouldn't have.

At Princeton, the cadgers held an early 14-6 lead over the Tigers. Then Harvard hit a bad streak of missed shots, sloppy defense, turnovers and offensive fouls. Princeton capitalized, scoring 16 straight points to go ahead 22-14 and eventually win by 87-64.

Junior guard Dale Dover-who stopped the Tigers leading scorer, all-Ivy Jeff Petrie, with 4 points-paced the Crimson with 19 tallies. Matt Bozek added 15, and Mike Janszewski, recovered from an ankle in jury earlier in the season, had 14 points.

Though Harvard out-rebounded Princeton and held Tigers center John Hummer to 19 points, it was unable to fast break and took poor shots instead of working the ball into the front-court for easier shots. Sophomore forward Brian Newmark, suffering from mononucleosis, only played for about 12 minutes, reducing the Crimson's scoring potential underneath.

Unlike the Princeton game, Harvard never really had a chance against Penn. Quaker coach Dick Harter, whose 11-1 squad is ranked 18th in the nation, substituted frequently, and his team ran up a 103-71 score for its fourth Ivy League victory without a loss.

With superb outside shooting by its guards, the Quakers built an early lead and cut off the Crimson's fast break. Again, Harvard shot poorly from the floor and was behind 51-30 at half-time.

"Penn could have set the score where they wanted to." said Harvard coach Bob Harrison, "but they were generous to us. I know that 32 points is much too big a made it even worse."

Captain Ernie Hardy, who played his best game of the season against the Quakers, managed an individual effort that was the game's bright spot for the Crimson. Besides leading all scorers with 25 points and grabbing 18 rebounds Hardy intercepted a Quaker field goal attempt as soon as the ball left guard Dave Wohl's hands.

At M. I. T. tonight. Harvard will need another strong performance by Hardy. Newmark won't play against the Engineers, so the Crimson's rebounding responsibilities will fall largely to Hardy.

Coach Harrison plans to experiment with a zone defense in order to stop M. I. T.'s free-wheeling offensive patterns. "We've given' up too many points [four teams have scored over 100 points against the Crimson]," said Harrison. "and I want to see how our kids will react with a zone defense,"

Offensively, Harvard has suffered from poor shot selection this winter, and another weak shooting night against the Engineers will make the Crimson's chances of winning slimmer.

Even though the freshman basketball team was behind Holy Cross for most of the first half. it came back strong in the second half to top the Crusaders, 95-88, for its sixth straight win. James Brown led the freshman with a 28-point performance.