Wait Until Next Year

PROVIDENCE-Harvard Coach Pete Roby was not a happy man after Saturday night's loss to Brown here at Marvel Gym.

The Crimson coach had no reason to be pleased. It was a bad weekend and a very bad way to end the season.

Going into last weekend's contests with Yale and Brown, Harvard had a chance to finish in third place in the Ivy League. A sweep of the Elis and Bruins would have improved the Crimson's Ivyrecord to 8-6, and evened the squad's overall markat 13-13.

A .500 overall record and third-place leaguefinish would have been a great accomplishment fora team that lost so much to graduation.

But Yale and Brown had different ideas.

The Elis, who tied with Penn and Princeton forthird place in the league, beat Harvard, 73-69,Friday. Lowly Brown, which finished tied for lastplace with Columbia, edged the Crimson Saturday,103-101, in overtime.

Harvard had defeated both Yale and Brown quitehandily earlier in the season.

"Anyone who's happy about this game won't be onthe team next season," Roby said.

The two games exemplified Harvard's losses thisyear. Against Yale, the Crimson fell behind earlyand made a great comeback before falling short atthe end.

Against the Bruins, Harvard was in a positionto put its opponent away, but couldn't completethe kill. The Crimson was 0-3 in overtime gamesthis year, all of them in Ivy games.

In essence, these two losses summed up thefrustration of every loss that Harvard hassuffered lately. Especially the last one.

"The toughest thing about this loss is that youhave to sit down and think about it all year,"Roby said. "It's the last game. You can't go outthere in a couple of days to get that bad tasteout of your mouth."

There is a silver lining to the cloud of doom.Harvard has made steady progress over Roby'sthree-year tenure, winning more games each year.That bodes well for next season, even ifSaturday's loss doesn't.

"I think we have a strong nucleus of people tovie for the Ivy title next year," Roby said.

Of course, the team will have to correct theproblems that this year's team had.

It will take a lot of work, a few good recruitsand good seasons from a few key returning players,but if it keeps progressing, the team very wellcould be in the race a year from now.

It does help to have the team's top threescorers returning. It also helps to have acoaching staff that isn't satisfied with justprogress.

"I'll never be satisfied until we win theleague," Roby said, "but I'm encouraged.