Cagers Look For Fine Exit

If you can't be the best, or the second best, why not try to be third best?

The Harvard men's basketball team can't finish in either first or second place in the Ivy League this season, but the Crimson can take third place--if all goes well during this final weekend of action.

Harvard (6-6 Ivy, 11-13 overall) is currently in a three-way tie for fourth place in the league, one game behind Princeton.

If the Crimson sweeps its games against Yale tonight and Brown tomorrow--two teams Harvard has already defeated this year--and if first-place Cornell defeats the Tigers Saturday, the Crimson will finish in a third-place tie.

But before the team can celebrate a job well done, the Crimson must first get by Yale (6-6, 10-14) in New Haven tonight at 7:30 p.m. (WHRB, 95.3 FM, tape delay). And although Harvard crushed the Elis, 89-68, earlier this season, Harvard Coach Peter Roby isn't taking them for granted.

"The [Yale] game was very deceiving," Roby said. "Early on in the game, key plays went our way. They missed a few easy shots, and we made a few hard ones. By the time they called their first timeout, it was 22-10."

One of the main reasons why Harvard had such an easy time with Yale in February was the poor play of Yale Captain Paul Maley. Maley--who was selected as a first-team All-Ivy player as a junior and has averaged 20.3 points and 8.1 rebounds this season--was a weak 6-for-23 from the field at Briggs Cage. That probably won't happen again.

The Elis will also need point guard Peter White (116 assists this year) to get the ball to forward John Rice (10.4 p.p.g.) and center Eric Mitchell (9.7 p.p.g., 5.1 r.p.g.) for Yale to beat Harvard.

After tonight's game, the Crimson will travel to Providence to face Mike Cingiser's Bruins (1-11, 5-19) on Saturday night (7:30 p.m., WHRB tape delay).

Although Brown has had trouble against just about everyone this year, the Bruins were on top of Harvard by 13 points at halftime earlier this season until the Crimson rallied for a 77-64 win.

"We were on the ropes against Brown," Roby said.