NEW YORK, Feb. 6-The Crimson quintet managed to tie a tenacious Columbia team in the final three seconds of regulation play on George Harrington's ten-foot jump shot here tonight and then break loose in the first overtime to win 80-75.

Harrington's jump-shot capped a last second team rally which saw the Crimson, trailing 71-63, score eight straight points. The victory itself was a team one with six varsity players breaking into the double figure scoring column.

Led by sophomore guard Murray Milton who was the game's high scorer with 25 points, Columbia took the lead early in the game. At the seven-minute mark with Harvard leading, 9-8, the Lions scored seven straight points and began to pull away. At one point late in the first half, Columbia led by 16 points, 33-17, but the Crimson rallied to narrow the Lions' margin 36-28 at half-time.

In handling Columbia its fifteenth loss, and thus ending its own three-game losing streak, the varsity managed to overcome the poor shooting which has hampered its play in the last few games. Though Crimson players hit for only 31 per cent in the first half, the team's shooting improved considerably in the second half to give the varsity a respectable game average of 38 per cent from the floor. Surprisingly enough, however, the Lions managed to out-rebound Harvard in both halves.

The second half turned into a see-saw battle with the Crimson cutting into Columbia's lead only to have the Lions pull away again. With nine minutes gone in the second half, after Dave Grayer, who played the game in place of Bob Bowditch, had fouled out, Columbia increased its lead from four to eight points and maintained the margin until the closing minutes.

With two minutes to play, Bill Richling sank a field goal from 20 feet out to ignite the Crimson rally and put them within six points of the Lions. After a field goal by Mike Donolfue, Bob Repetto stole the ball and netted two more to bring the score to 71-69 with 15 seconds to play.

The varsity won the tap after Columbia missed a foul shot which would have iced the game, giving Harrington a chance to score his most important points of the evening.

The team will continue its three-game Ivy League road trip against Cornell tonight