Cagers Drop Weekend Pair

If the Harvard men's basketball team fares as poorly on its final exams as it did in two Ivy League games this weekend, there may be no squad members left when Columbia and Cornell travel to Cambridge for rematches in February.

The cagers will take a 7-7 overall record into the two-week exam break, but the squad's Ivy record fell to 1-3 after a 61-59 overtime defeat in Ithaca Friday and a 60-44 loss Saturday in New York. The two defeats ended Harvard's four-game 1983 winning streak.

"It's an exhausting trip," Crimson Coach Frank McLaughlin said yesterday, trying to piece together the causes for the weekend's disappointment. "There's a tremendous advantage in the Ivy League playing at home."

The key to the trip was the Cornell game, where the ball never seemed to bounce in Harvard's direction. As they have for most of the season, the cagers started slowly, allowing Cornell to build a 14-point first-half bulge. The second half wasn't all roses for the Crimson either, as the Big Red once enjoyed a 10-point lead.

But those who know this year's Harvard squad know it never gives up. The cagers fought back to take the lead and appeared to have the game won when freshman guard David Bernard calmly sank two free throws to give the Crimson a four-point lead with just 24 seconds remaining.

The Big Red quickly cut the spread to two with a long-range jumper.

Seconds later Harvard point guard Calvin Dixon dribbled the ball off a four and out of bounds. Dixon thought the foot belonged to a Cornell defender, but the referees ruled otherwise.

The Big Red hit another perimeter shot, and the game went into overtime. When Hawathia Wilson sank one from the outside at the end of the period. Harvard had its first loss in four weeks.

"It was a very difficult game for us," McLaughlin said. "I don't think we could have bounced back."

Sure enough, a sluggish Crimson suffered the next night from the multiple torments of an exhausting trip, upcoming finals and the Cornell heartbreaker. Center Monroe Trout did not start, still nursing a sore ankle he reinjured in the first half at Ithaca.

Columbia, which barely survived a Dartmouth challenge the night before, also started poorly, but held an 18-17 lion edge at the half.

Blown Away

The Lions reeled off 15 straight and 21 of 23 near the start of the second half to blow Harvard off the floor, only the third team to break open a game with the cagers all year.

Forward Ken Plutaicki led the Crimson cause with 14 points, followed by Bernard with 10 Though McLaughlin cleared his bench, only five players managed to score.

Things were better for Harvard Friday, as Dixon, Plutaicki and Ferry each copped 14 points to lead the scoring against Cornell.

Though the trip dropped the Crimson into the Ivy League's second division, the year is far from over and the cagers promise to surprise some teams along the way.

"We have the kind of team that can beat anybody," McLaughlin said. Unfortunately, he added. "We have the kind of team that can lose to anybody, too."