Seton Hall Upsets Crimson Hoopsters, 81 - 80

NEW YORK--Seton Hall's Steve Lavino missed what might have been the winning jump shot with four seconds left in the game, but it didn't matter. His teammate Ken House put in the rebound to give the Pirates a narrow 81-80 win over the Crimson Saturday afternoon in Madison Square Garden.

A three-point play by Harvard's Floyd Lewis with 1:14 remaining gave the Crimson what seemed to be a commanding 80-77 lead. The Pirates came back with a lay up by sophomore guard Frank Zelesnik, but then fouled Harvard's sophomore guard Jim Fitzsimmons.

Fitzsimmons, who had pulled the Crimson back from an eight-point deficit midway through the second half, with two quick jump shots, missed the one-and-one situation with just 25 seconds left. From there Seton Hall took over.

The turning point, however, was the first half, when Harvard had mounted a nine-point lead three different times midway through the half.

"That was the key," coach Bob Harrison said after the game. "Each time we made some mistake, and they came back. We had 13 turnovers and six offensive fouls that half that prevented us from capitalizing on our leads," he said.

Seton Hall, moving the ball well against the Harvard zone, hit the open man on the baseline several times at the end of the half and climbed back to within one point of the Crimson, 43-42.

Harvard went back into a four-point lead, 54-50, after five minutes of the second half, but then Zelesnik, who paced the Pirates with 18 points (17 in the second half), got a rebound basket, and House, who tallied 17 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, scored underneath to get Seton Hall rolling.

The Crimson then went four minutes without scoring a field goal, and the Pirates pulled ahead by eight, 69-61.

"I thought our man-to-man defense in the middle of the second half helped us build our lead." Seton Hall coach Bill Raferty said after the game. "And now I'm awfully glad we don't have to play them anymore. They are a good, talented team that will win a lot of games this season," he added.

Harvard came right back as it had against Northeastern two days before Fitzsimmons, who scored 25 points in the game, tallied two jump shots.

Lewis, who led both teams in scoring and rebounding, added two rebound baskets. The lead bounced back and forth until the final minutes. Lewis scored 30 points, hitting 11-of-19 from the floor and 8-of-12 from the line, and grabbed 17 rebounds.

"We should have buried them in the first half," Lewis said after the game. "But then we threw the ball away a couple of times and they were right back in there."

Harvard, now 1-1 for the season, travels to Dartmouth on Wednesday to open its Ivy League schedule.