Minus the benefit of the customary holiday games, the Crimson basketball team will undergo its severest test to date as it opens 1957 with three tough games this week. M.I.T. is first on the agenda, facing the varsity tonight in the I.A.B. at 8:30. Columbia and Pennsylvania will furnish opposition away this weekend.

The varsity, no longer owner of an unblemished record, since it lost to Northeastern, 66-60, December 21, still has two bright spots to look back on for its first two and a half weeks of play. Harvard leads the country in defense with an average of only 50.2 points per game against them and is atop the Ivy League standings, with a 2 and 0 record. It is 4 and 1 overall.

Tonight's contest against M.I.T. not only will test the team's defensive record, but will also serve to tell whether the team can regain the early December form which led to four straight victories, capped by the 92-47 slaughter of Brown.

Vacation Trip Cancelled

Coach Floyd Wilson yesterday expressed concern over the team's three game haul this week. Bemoaning the fact that his squad had no games over the Christmas holidays, he said "the team has played fewer games than ever before by this time."

While other teams were playing three or four games over the vacation, Harvard was idle owing to a cancellation of the projected Southern trip because of the segregation issue. Wilson added that he would be "very pleased" to win two of the three games this week.

Harvard will be handicapped tonight by the illness of its leading scorer, junior forward Dick Woolston. Though the team has been practising since Friday. Woolston reported only yesterday, and will see only limited action.

Bryant Danner, a 6-5 sophomore, who has shown remarkable rebounding prowess, will replace Woolston in the starting lineup. The other four regulars, guards Bob Hastings and Dick Hurley, center Ike Canty, and forward Monk Muncaster will open at their customary positions.

M.I.T. has won four of six games, a record far better than what was expected. Two sophomores have led the team thus far, Bob Poluchko, who has averaged over 19 points per game, and Lee Cooper, with about 14 per game.

In the Northeastern fiasco, the Crimson lost its first game while the Huskies won their first contest. Overconfidence, and an anticipated desire to leave for the holidays may have been the subjective causes of defeat, but on the court Harvard handled the ball sloppily and the Northeastern attack was hot.

The Huskies tallied on 48 percent of their shots from the field, to counter the 24 extra shots that the varsity got off. The Crimson had the unenviable total of 18 lost balls, a major factor in the defeat, and also committed 42 percent more fouls.

Canty's 18 rebounds were the individual highlight for the varsity, and Muncaster led the scoring with 14 points. Scoring honors went to two Huskies, however, with Bill Colby tallying 25, and Dick Steward, 18.

In a 6:15 preliminary, the JV's will take on Salem Teachers' College.