M. Cagers Crush Cadets

Speed was the watchword at Lavietes Pavilion last night as the Harvard men's basketball team ran past Army 75-59.

The Crimson (4-0) was quick out of the box, tallying up a 13-point lead midway through the first half, then riding senior small forward Mike Scott and junior point guard Tim Hill's combined 40-point evening to outlast the Cadets (1-4).

"We knew Harvard was a very fast team," said Army coach Pat Harris. "The game was very up-tempo, and that was to their advantage, particularly when they were ahead."

Hill, who shot 7-of-12 from the floor for 18 points while playing the full 40 minutes, chipped in five assists, directing a sharp, effective offense which finished at 49.2 percent from the field.

Army, meanwhile, without junior swingman and leading scorer George Tatum--lost to an aggravated groin injury--struggled all night to find an offensive rhythm, hitting only 24-of-62 as Harvard kept the Cadets under the 40 percent benchmark at 38.7 percent.

"Army was out of synch without Tatum in the lineup," said Harvard coach Frank Sullivan. "They were looking all night for someone to step upon the offense, and it's very hard to make that kind of adjustment."

The Crimson had no such difficulties, as Scott provided the game's emotional firepower with a 22-point, 11-rebound effort and a consistently aggressive presence around the basket and on loose balls.

Harvard charged out of the gate on the legs of Hill, whose coast-to-coast layup in the opening minute gave the Crimson a 4-2 lead--one it never relinquished.

Hill then added a three-pointer and a baseline jumper, scoring seven of Harvard's first ten points.

The first half's major run came several minutes in, as junior shooting guard Mike Beam kicked things off by knocking down a baseline jumper from the right side and another from the top of the key to put Harvard up 14-9.

After Scott and freshman forward Dan Clemente checked in, Harvard worked the inside-outside game to perfection, capitalizing on five Army turnovers to sprint out to a 26-13 lead with 9:10 left in the half.

Hill found junior power forward Paul Fisher underneath for a layup off a jump-pass, then Fisher on the next trip down the court hit Clemente for another low-post layup.

After Cadet shooting guard Chris Crawford burned the baseline defence for two, Clemente took a perimeter pass from sophomore guard Damian Long and hit a 10-footer from the baseline.

But it was Scott who put the exclamation point on the rally by gathering up Army forward Seth Barrett's lost dribble at the foul line and breaking away down-court for the one-handed dunk.

"[Scott] plays with so much energy," Hill said. "He really brings a lot of enthusiasm to the whole team."

The Cadets kept pace for the remainder of the half, and Harvard headed to the locker-room up 39-26, with a crucial 15 points off Army turnovers.

The second half was more of the same, as the Crimson outhustled what looked like a leaderless Army behind Scott's aggressiveness and excellent spot-minutes from Clemente and freshman forward Chris Lewis spelling Fisher and junior Bill Ewing in the frontcourt.

Clemente, averaging 13.0 ppg and 7.3 rpg entering the Army contest, contributed solidly once again, with nine points and nine boards in 26 minutes on the floor.

Lewis, though sometimes shaky shooting the ball, pulled down five rebounds in ten hard-working minutes, including a key role in a sequence that seemed to break Army's back early in the second half.

Up 52-43, Hill took a steal down the court and found Lewis in the paint, who collected the rebound off his own miss and drew a foul. And after missing the pair, Lewis hustled to the sideline for a loose ball and fired it back inbounds which led to a Scott basket.

Beam, 5-of-9 on the night for 12 points, then followed up an Army deuce with one of his two three-point buckets, opening up a relatively decisive 57-45 lead.

But in the article as in the game, Scott gets the last word in this win, as he brought the sparse crowd to its feet in garbage time with a singular effort on the defensive end.

After Beam's second three-pointer made the lead 66-52, Army point guard Babe Kwasniak ran the ball across half-court and hit an open forward Joe Clark for a gimmee three from the left wing.

Scott, racing back across the time line to make the play, swatted Clark's shot out of bounds, pursued the loose ball and made the save in midair, flipping it back in toward a crowded key, then grappled his way to the bottom of the pile and some-how wrestled out a jump ball and a Harvard possession.

The Crimson then walked it home for the 75-59 win, extending to 27 their unbeaten streak when opponents shoot under 40 percent from the field, and Hill finally got his breather with two seconds on the game clock and Army at the line.

"What happened tonight was we played an excellent basketball team," Harris said.

The Crimson now takes its 4-0 mark on the road, travelling to Worcester to meet Holy Cross Saturday. HARVARD  75 ARMY  59