Men's Basketball Hosts Columbia and Cornell in Farewell to Dan Clemente

Four months ago, at the outset of the 2000-2001 NCAA men's basketball campaign, expectations ran high for the Harvard squad. With three starters and several other key reserves returning from the previous year, many observers predicted big things for this year's group.

Just two weeks ago, with the Crimson (12-12, 5-7 Ivy) coming off a convincing victory over Penn that snapped the Quakers' twenty-five-game conference winning streak, the predictions appeared to be correct. Even a hearbreaking 69-67 last-second loss to Princeton the following night could not dampen the Crimson's spirts.

At the time, Harvard was 5-2 in the Ivy League after tangling with the conference's two perennial powerhouses and was in the thick of the race for the league title and the automatic NCAA tournament berth that comes with it.

Then, things fell apart for the Crimson. Road losses to Brown and Yale, both by eight point margins, followed by a 62-48 loss to Penn on February 23 and a 70-47 drubbing at Princeton the next night dropped Harvard into sixth place.

Now, the sputtering Crimson enters the final weekend of the season playing only for pride. A sweep over Columbia and Cornell would bring the squad to the .500 plateau in the Ivy League.

Harvard needs just one win to best last year's total and reach .500 overall for the fifth time in the last six campaigns. The games also have a great sentimental significance for the Harvard basketball family. They mark the end of the career of one of the most decorated Crimson players in recent memory, captain Dan Clemente, as well as his senior classmate Bryan Parker.

Columbia (11-14, 6-6 Ivy) comes into Friday night's game having had its chance at the Ivy title crushed by a heartbreaking 67-65 loss to Brown last weekend. The Lions are led by Craig Austin, who ranks third in the league in scoring with an average of 18.2 points per game and is one of Clemente's competitors for Ivy League Player of the Year honors. Columbia has also demonstrated the capacity to be a dangerous squad, beating Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Yale in consecutive games before falling to Brown.

The Lions beat Harvard 65-55 a month ago in New York in a game in which the Crimson started flat and never recovered. Columbia brings a 1-11 road mark to Lavietes Pavilion, however, where Harvard has beaten eight of its 11 opponents this season.

In those eight wins, the Crimson's average margin of victory was sixteen points. Harvard has fallen by an average of just three points in its trio of home losses.

Saturday night, in what will be the last game for former high school teammates Clemente and Parker, the Crimson will take on Cornell (7-18, 3-9 Ivy). The Big Red come to Cambridge following a weekend in which the team lost to Yale and dropped a heartbreaker to Brown, 67-65, after leading for all but four minutes. Cornell did, however, beat Princeton the weekend before to end a fifteen-game losing streak to the Tigers that spanned eight years.

Although he is not one to focus on individual goals, Clemente, the team's top scorer, at 18.3 points per game, and top rebounder, with 6.7 per outing, could add to his 1,437 career points, which already place him sixth all-time, and rise as high as fourth on the Harvard career list. Doing so would further the already impressive legacy he is poised to leave, which includes a school-record 212 three-pointers.

Two other records are in jeapordy this weekend, as well. Junior guard Andrew Gellert, with 68 steals on the year, needs just six to surpass the mark he established last year, while the team as a whole can break the 1996-1997 squad's mark of 188 three-pointers with three trifectas.

The focus of the weekend, though, will not be on numbers and records; instead, it will be on beating Columbia and Cornell. In addition to Clemente, the Crimson's chances at doing so will hinge greatly on the team's second-leading scorer, Pat Harvey, who averages 13.4 points per game, and sophomore guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman, who is leading the Ivy League in assists for the second consecutive season.

If Harvard is successful, however, it will honor Parker and Clemente in the most appropriate way: by sending them into the sunset with wins in their final collegiate games.