Looking To Improve On a 19-89 Record

With the Harvard men's basketball team journeying--even at this very moment--to Philadelphia for its annual Penn-Princeton pilgrimage, the basketball notebook takes time to look the statistical history of the two rivalries.

Harvard (3-8 overall this year, 0-1 Ivy) has faced Penn 108 times since 1902 and come away with only 19 victories. Included in the Quakers' 89 triumphs is a 19-game winning streak in the '70s.

The Crimson's 77-75 victory at the Palestra a year ago was the cagers' first triumph over Penn since the 1977-78 season, and the first away from Cambridge since the 1967-68 campaign.

Meanwhile, Princeton holds an 81-32 series edge over the Crimson. The Tigers had a 21-game streak of their own during the 85-year history of the rivalry.

The two teams split last year, with Harvard winning, 60-50, at Princeton's Jadwin Gym to complete the first-ever Penn-Princeton road sweep, and the Tigers rebounding with a 52-54 win in Cambridge the following month.

And for those fans who have chosen a weekend in Widener over a road trip with the cagers, WHRB (95.3 FM) will be carrying both games. A taped broadcast of the Penn contest will air at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday, following the hockey game against Clarkson; the Princeton matchup will be broadcast live Saturday starting at 7 p.m.

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Harvard Coach Pete Roby picked up his first technical foul of the season last week in the first half of the Lafayette game (which the Crimson ultimately won, 68-58).

Roby, who had been very vocal in his displeasure with a number of calls on the night, was finally hit with a "T" after arguing a foul call on Harvard center Bill Mohler.

But although the first-year coach has dished out far more than one technical's worth of abuse to officials over the course of the season, Roby consistently refuses to cite poor officiating as a cause of the Crimson's losing record.

Incidentally, both coaches rode the refs so hard during the first half of the Lafayette contest that official Fran Foley was heard to wonder at halftime, "Are we really as bad as the benches seem to think?"

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This Week's Impossible To Get Trivia Question: Which current cager is the nephew of reggae star Dennis Brown? Answer below.

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The Lafayette game contained another season-first: junior guard Keith Webster played in every minute of the contest.

Last year, 40-minute ironman performances were the norm, as then-Coach Frank McLaughlin often let his starters go the distance. Some 50 times last season, a Cantab logged a 40-minute performance.

But this year, a new philosophy by Roby--combined with a stronger bench or weaker starting five, depending on how you look at it--has meant that no one had played all 40 until Webster.

Last year's starting five played 94 percent of the Crimson minutes. Through Harvard's first eight games this season, starters had accounted for less than 65 percent of play.

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Freshman forward Neil Phillips continues to play like the best Harvard freshman since Bob Ferry.

Through 11 games, the Germantown, Md. native leads the Crimson in minutes played (355), points (141), rebounds (66) and field goal shooting percentage (50.4 percent), and is second in free throw percentage (88.5 percent).

Additionally, Phillips has more assists (19) than all other regular Harvard frontcourtmen combined, is second on the team in steals (19), and owns two of the Crimson's three 20-point performances on the year.

All of which is not a bad couple of days at the office.

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None of the above should take anything away from the play of the other seven freshman on the cager squad. Of the 10 players to see regular action this year, six are members of the Class of '89.

Guards Mike Gielen and Tedd Evers (actually a guard-forward swingman) have provided able relief to the starting tandem of Pat Smith and Webster.

Gielen is the leading non-starting scorer at slightly under six points a game, and Evers has come on after a slow start to hit for more than four points a contest.

Gielen is one of two hoopsters (Smith is the other) not to have more turnovers than assists (Gielen has 24 of each).

In the frontcourt, Fred Schernecker (six-and-a-half points per game) and walk-on David Lang (4.0 per game) have shone, while David Wolkoff has seen more and more time.

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Quiz answer: Neil Phillips.

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And finally, what would a basketball notebook be without a look at Harvard's performance from the free throw line?

The national free throw percentage leaders the past two seasons, the cagers have been hurt this year by loss of sharp-shooters Bob Ferry and Joe Carrabino.

After hitting at better than an 80 percent clip during the past two years, Harvard has slipped to 76.4 percent this season. Still, its performance was good enough to log the team in the top-20 nationally in a recent ranking.