It Can't Be All That Bad

Baskteball, according to Harvard men's basketball Coach Peter Roby, "is a microcosm for life." Looking at it this way, the Crimson's 1990-91 Ivy League season was divided into two very distinct lives: the Good Life and the Bad Life.

The Good Life came early. Harvard won its first five league games, four of them on the road, before being handed its first loss, a 75-59 setback at the hands of Princeton on February 2 at Jadwin Gym. The Crimson returned to Good-Life form on Friday night of the next weekend, downing Brown 90-77 at Briggs Cage.

Thus ended the Good Life.

Just as the Good Life was characterized by wins, the Bad Life was characterized by losses--seven losses, all in a row. If the Crimson's Bad Life was your life, you would have failed all four of your classes, including Heroes for Zeros, totaled your brand new car (the one you won on Wheel of Fortune during the Good Life), lost your new boy/girlfriend to your roommate, and to cap it all off, you would have lost the Techmo bowl championship to your ten year-old little sister.

But what you would probably find out is that while it may seem bad now, your life has potential--just like the basketball team's.

The Crimson is returning the Ivy League's leading rebounder in the person of junior forward Ron Mitchell, and the league's leader in assists, sophomore point guard Tarik Campbell. Harvard will return next year, looking for the consistency it hunted for all season long.

March Madness?: According to Roby, don't be surprised if Princeton hangs around the NCAA's biggest party for more than one weekend.

"I know Pete [Carril, Tigers coach] is going to get upset with me for saying this, but that's good because he's always upset at me anyway, but if Princeton gets by the first round, and I think they will they'll go to the Sweet Sixteen," Roby said.

"I think whoever draws them is in big trouble. The toughest game for the opponent is not going to be the first one, it will be the second, because there is no way in hell anybody is going to prepare for Princeton in one day. There is just no way," Roby added.

If Ivy League teams are any indicator, it takes more than the length of one season to devise a game plan to knock off the Tigers.

We Thought You Should Know: Thanks go out to the Ivy League office for this "meaningless fact of the week." Before Princeton did it this year, only four teams had waded through the Ivy League season to emerge with an unblemished record since formal league play commenced in 1956: the 1969 and '76, and the '70 and '71 Quakers. Of those four, only the '71 Penn squad managed at least one victory in the NCAA tournament.

For The Record: Princeton guard Sean Jackson established a new Ivy League record for three-pointers made in a season last week. Jackson eclipsed the previous high, 51, set by Dartmouth's Jim Barton in the 1987-88 season, with his first three-pointer of the second half in the Tigers's 79-64 defeat over Harvard last Friday.

Jackson, who hit 13 of his 19 attempts from behind the three-point are last week, finished with 56 on the season and a league-leading 55 percent conversion clip.

Live, In Person: Pennsylvania freshman sensation Will McAllister finally made his first appearance at Briggs Cage last Saturday. On the strength of his 13-point, two-rebound, 10-minute stint against the Crimson, McAllister copped his seventh Ivy League Rookie of the Week award.