Columbia Raps Cagers, 55-50

NEW YORK--With their sights set on Penn and the Ivy League championship, the red hot Columbia cagers Saturday handed the Crimson a 55-50 loss, which may finally put Harvard, now 4-5, out of the league race for 1982.

The Crimson suffered through its second consecutive heart breaking weekend, winning an overtime thriller against Cornell Friday only to fail in front of 2650 screaming fans in Levien Gymnasium Last weekend. Harvard (9-12 overall) tell to Penn after slipping past Princeton for the first time in 11 years.

Columbia (7-3 Ivy, 14-8 overall) moved into second place, a half game behind the league-leading Quakers, with its sixth consecutive victory.

Forward Don Fleming once again provided the Crimson firepower, racking up 27 points and pulling down nine rebounds to lead both teams in both categories. But Fleming couldn't do it alone against Columbia's balanced offense and a cat-quick defense that held all other Crimson scorers below seven points.

"Columbia deserves a lot of credit." Harvard Coach Frank McLaughlin said after the game. "They're on a roll. They're playing well, and when you're playing well, things go your way."

Speedy Cats

The Lions flaunted their quickness from the start, going man-to-man on defense and pressing the Crimson all the way down the court.

Harvard countered the Lions' team speed with the same effective three-two zone that had closed down Cornell the night before and that kept Columbia in check for most of the first half.

The Lions led by four at the end of a close first stanza in which neither team pushed ahead by more than four and the lead switched hands six times.

Columbia guard Dan Armstrong broke a 20-20 deadlock with a jumper from the left corner at 3:30. After Columbia got the ball back, the Lions held for the last shot, which guard Brad Brown swished with three seconds left on the clock to give Columbia a 24-20 halftime advantage.

In the second half, the Lions began crashing the offensive boards, and at 14-48, forward Tom Brecht hit a turn around jumper to give Columbia an eight-point lead, 32-24.

One minute later, the Lions went to a four-corner offense, forcing the Crimson out of its three-two zone and into a man-to-man alignment.

Fleming cut the lead to six with a driving left-hander after Armstrong missed a jumper, but Columbia's quickness became painfully apparent as a series of lay-ups and back-door plays helped the Lions build their lead to 13 points in the next seven minute.

Harvard's Calvin Dixon hit a foul shot with 1-24 remaining and brought the deficit to nine Columbia then missed the front end of three consecutive one and one opportunities, and Fleming cut the lead to three by tapping in a missed Bob Ferry jumper with 13 seconds left.

The Crimson comeback. however, proved too little, too late, as Armstrong threw it down five seconds later on a fastbreak earning himself a standing ovation from the crowd and a 55-50 victory for the Lions.

THE NOTEBOOK Harvard shot 44 4 percent against Columbia, going eight for 14 in the first half and then cooling off to a dismal eight-for-22 in the second. Fleming's 27 point performance was his third straight over 25... Columbia's offense picked up whopping 17 assists, as the Lions moved the ball well throughout the game.