Men Cagers' Blues

It may be lonely at the top, but it's even lonelier at the bottom for the Harvard men's basketball team.

Because for the first time in years, the Crimson cagers are alone at the bottom of the Ivy League basketball standings.

All alone.

Gazing at a sheet of league statistics is a pretty discouraging prospect these days if you're a Harvard fan. Team scoring offense: Harvard last at 50.5 points per league game.

And the bottom line, league record: Harvard last at 1-7.

In each of the past two seasons, just when it looked like they were about to end 80-plus years of frustration, 80-plus years without an Ivy League title, the men cagers have suffered devastating late-season disappointments.

Two years ago, it was a 76-67 loss to Cornell on the final weekend of the season which consigned the Crimson to another could-have-been season.

And last year it was this very Penn-Princeton weekend which marked the beginning of the end of perhaps the most promising--and disappointing--season in Crimson hoop history.

Following an 8-0 non-league start and a 6-2 record in the opening round of league contests, Harvard was atop the Ivy heap and all gussied up for its date with destiny.

Destiny stood Harvard up.

Because a year ago this weekend the Quakers, who would eventually win the Ancient Eight crown, and the Tigers came to Cambridge and defeated the Crimson in front of record Briggs Athletic Center crowds.

The tailspin that began that weekend didn't abate until the season ended with Harvard tied for fourth place in the Ivies at 7-7. Another could-be season had turned into another could-have-been season.

There will be no late-season disappointment this year.

Which gets us back to why the Crimson is all alone at the bottom of the Ivy League, and gets us back to the peculiar nature of this weekend.

Harvard has never won the league crown, but in recent years Dartmouth--the Crimson's travelling partner--has had an unmatched record of dismal league performance.

The Big Green has finished last in the league four of the past five years and has not had a winning season since the 1971-72 campaign.

In the years that both Harvard and Dartmouth were bad (which were not infrequent), the rest of the league could look forward to its "Harvard-Dartmouth" trips as a nice vacation and two easy wins.

In the past few years, with the Crimson a modest force in the league and the Big Green still a doormat, teams viewed the "H-D" weekend as a semi-tough proposition: an easy win in Hanover, N.H. followed by a real contest in Cambridge.

But suddenly this year, Dartmouth has started winning, beating Yale on the road, coming within two points of league-leader Brown on the road, and sweeping Columbia and Cornell at home last weekend.

There are seven teams still in the Ivy race as of this weekend, seven teams within two-and-a-half games of the top.

For Dartmouth, Penn, and Princeton, this is a key Ivy weekend: any team that can engineer a sweep will move to the top of the pack; any team that is swept can start looking towards next season.

The Crimson cagers, who are involved in this weekend's festivities but are at the same time very distant from them, will appreciate the company.