M. Cagers Set to Host Lions And Big Red

The Harvard men's basketball squad wraps up its home schedule this weekend with matchups against Columbia and Cornell at Briggs Cage.

These games will be the final home appearances for the Crimson's three seniors Dave LaPointe, Mike Minor and Ron Mitchell.

"These last two games mean a lot to us. We have started a three game home winning streak and hope to carry it into next year," Minor said.

The Crimson (4-18 overall, 3-7 Ivy) is also hoping to rebound strongly from the thrashings it received on the road at the hands of Penn and Princeton last weekend.

The long highlight of the weekend was Ron Mitchell establishing himself as the most prolific career rebounder in Crimson history with 766 boards.

He'll be looking to pad his record this weekend at Briggs.

The triumvirate of junior Tyler Rullman (15.6 ppg), Mitchell (13 ppg) and junior Peter Condakes (10.6 ppg) lead Harvard's control offense.

Rullman has emerged this year as a viable All-Ivy candidate. He is fourth in the league in scoring, second in the field goal percentage (.565) and seventh in rebounding (5.7 rpg).

Threatening the Crimson's fragile three game home winning streak this weekend are the Lions of Columbia and the Big Red of Cornell.

The Competition

The Lions (8-14, 6-4) are led by the high-flying tandem of guard Buck Jenkins (17.5 ppg) and Ivy League Player of the Week guard Russ Steward (14.2 ppg). Currently, Columbia is the highest scoring team in the league averaging (74.2) points per game.

In their game against the Crimson in New York, the Lions ran up a season high 94 points en route to an easy 18 points victory.

With Harvard's porous defense near the league's cellar, yielding (70.4 ppg), this could be a barn-burner.

Although undefeated at home (5-0), the Lions have been pussycats on the road with a (1-4) record.

The other visiting squad Cornell (6-15, 4-6) have had their share of road woes as well. The Big Red is winless in Ivy Play away from Ithaca this year.

However, Cornell is currently on a four-game tear including a big 23-points whipping of the Crimson two weeks ago.

The Big Red is led by the scoring of Jeff Gaca (14.6 ppg) and the rebounding tandem of Zeke Marshall (5.1 rpg) and "Funky" Rich Medina (5.9 rpg).