It's All Over for Second Place Cagers

Time had run out on the Harvard men's basketball team some 24 hours before. Now, some had all but run out on Ken Plutnicki.

So with just four tiny clicks of the clock left Saturday night at Briggs Athletic Center, the senior co-captain dunked home the frustrations of the last four years. They were the final points of his Harvard career.

And they were the final points of Harvard's season.

For not even the Crimson's 88-77 drubbing of Columbia before 1100 Saturday could erase the disaster of 24 hours before. That was when Cornell put Harvard's dream of a first-ever Ivy title in serious trouble with a 76-67 upset of the Crimson.

The dream was seriously over when news reached Cambridge that Princeton had defeated Brown Saturday in Princeton to wrap up its second straight league title and the accompanying NCAA tournament berth.

It would have taken a Harvard victory and Princeton and Cornell losses on Saturday just to set up a three-way playoff for the title.

So, instead, Harvard (9-5 in the Ivies) finished just one game behind the 10-4 Tigers, locked in a second-place tie with Cornell-82-66 losers to Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H. in its season finale. And though the second-place finish tied the Crimson's best-ever Ivy effort, it left the cagers searching for more.

A team that began the weekend just a sweep of Cornell and Columbia away from at least a tie for that ever-elusive Ivy crown. Harvard could only dream of what might have been.

"I think our team is still in shock from Friday night," freshman guard Keith Webster said after Saturday night's win. "I don't know if we'll recover from that for a few days."

But in the far corner of the locker room stood Plutnicki, aware that the Ivy title had slipped from his squad's hands and equally aware that he had left a new tradition for his teammates to follow.

"If you look back, we've accomplished a lot," said the forward, who in four years watched the Harvard squad come to the forefront of Ivy men's basketball. "They've got something they can carry on now."

"We definitely left something in the Ivy League that people have to remember," Webster agreed. "People have to know it's going to come down to the last week again next year," Webster added. "Unless we've wrapped it up by then."

The optimism came from a team that will lose just Plutnicki and fellow Co-Captain Monroe Trout-who inexplicably did not play Saturday-and will return five of its top six players. It also came from a team that finished second in the league and beat the champion twice.

"I 'm really proud of them," Harvard Coach frank McLaughlin said as he awaited the score from Princetion.

He just hadn't been too proud of them a few minutes earlier. The Crimson squandered leads of 7-0, 17-11 and 35-27 in the first half and found itself on the short end of a 41-39 score three minutes into the second half of the game that Harvard had to win to keep its tiny title hopes alive.

"We played very poorly in the first half," McLaughlin said. "It would have been a shame to have ended it that way."

Especially if Princeton and Cornell had lost.

So when the scores trickled in the Cornell was losing big and Princeton was winning small. Harvard quickly asserted itself, pulling small. Harvard quickly asserted itself, pulling away behind Joe Carrabino's game-high 28 points and Webster's 18. Columbia never got within seven after just five minutes remained.

"We knew the chances of both (Cornell and Princeton) losing were a longshot," sophomore guard Pat Smith said. "But you never know. We just gave it our best."

Which included a new NCAA foul-shooting record. The Crimson hit 34 of 39 against the Lions to finish the season with an .822 mark from the line.

"That's something we can all be proud of," Plutnicki said. "That should take a long time to break."

And as news made it final-Princeton had won to officially end Harvard's season-Plutinicki thought back to the dunk.

"It's the perfect way for a basketball player to end his career," he said.

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard finished the season with a 15-11 overall record, only its second winning in 11 years. The Crimson's only other second-place finish in Ivy action came in the 1970-71 season, when the cagers compiled an 11-3 mark...Four cagers entered the scoring book in double digits Saturday night. Arne Duncan with 15. Carrabino with 28, Bob Ferry with 10 and Webster with 18...When final individual free throw stats are released later this week. Carrabino should probably finish second in the nation and Ferry third...Carrabino's almost a shoo-in for All-Ivy first team honors and a leading candidate for Ivy Player of the Year...In the second half alone, Carrabino grabbed 13 rebounds, a career high, but it was Ferry who came down with most of the clutch grabs off the boards.

At Briggs Athletic Center

HARVARD (88)-Ken Plutnicki 3-2-8; Arne Duncan 5-5-15; Joe Carrabino 8-12-28; Pat Smith 2-5-9; Bob Ferry 4-2-10; keith Webster 5-8-18; Greg Wildes 0-0-0. Totals 27-34-88; Fouled out-Ferry.

COLUMBIA (77)-Mark Lay 2-0-4; Carl Scholz 3-0-6; George Meikle 5-0-10; Dale Smith 1-1-3; Mark Settles 10-0-20; Chip Adams 3-0-6; Sean Couch 6-2-14; Todd Williams 3-0-6; Paul Lee 0-0-0; Tom Gwydir 3-2-8; Ron petrunoff 0-0-0; Mark Murphy 0-0-0. Totals 36-5-77; Fouled out; none.

Halftime, 35-35.

Att: 1100. Final 1983-84 Ivy League Men's Basketball Standings Team  W-L  Pct. *Princeton  10-4  .714 HARVARD  9-5  .643 Cornell  9-5  .643 Pennsylvania  7-7  .500 Brown  6-8  .429 Dartmouth  6-8  .429 Columbia  5-9  .357 Yale  4-10  .286

*Denotes Champion

Saturday's Results

HARVARD 88, Columbia 77

Princeton 65, Brown 57

Dartmouth 82, Cornell 66

Pennsylvania 63, Yale 60

*Denotes Champion

Saturday's Results

HARVARD 88, Columbia 77

Princeton 65, Brown 57

Dartmouth 82, Cornell 66

Pennsylvania 63, Yale 60