A desperation 45-foot shot at the buzzer by Princeton's John Haarlow spoiled Harvard's bid for the Eastern basketball upset of the year Saturday night.

The Crimson had lost its third straight Ivy game Friday, by a score of 86 to 65 at Penn, and trailed by ten points at halftime against the Tigers. But Harvard fought back to tie the score at 50-all with 2:30 to play, and then froze the ball until the final seconds.

With six seconds left, Keith Sedlacek tried a jump shot from the circle. It was blocked by 6-6 Ed Hummer, who scooped the ball over to Haarlow. The sophomore dribbled twice and then banked in a running one-hander from the midcourt line.

Harvard had trailed, 30 to 20 at halftime, but began to capitalize on a Princeton cold spell and a number of fouls called on the Tigers. Princeton went scoreless for seven minutes midway through the half, and with 11:20 to play Harvard had tied the game, 35 to 35.

A jump shot by Sedlacek and a pair of baskets by Gene Dressler gave Harvard a six-point lead. But three straight ball-handling errors by the Crimson enabled Princeton to tie it, 41 to 41. After that, the teams traded baskets until the agonizing denouement.

Sedlacek and Dressler were Harvard's leading scorers with 18 points, but the Crimson's overall shooting was very bad: they hit only 19 of 58 shots from the floor. Princeton's shooting was almost as cold, but the difference was the Tigers' height. The height advantage does not show up so much in the rebounding totals (44 to 35), but the Tigers were able to block about a dozen Harvard shots.

The only bright spot for Harvard fans in the Penn game was a 29-point performance by Sedlacek, who topped the 1000-point mark for his career.

The Quakers led at halftime, 42 to 34. With 16 minutes left, the Crimson shaved their lead to 46-42, but that was the closest Harvard ever got. The hot shooting of Stan Pawlak and Jeff Neumann quickly propelled Penn back into a commanding lead.

Neumann and Pawlak were both brilliant, scoring 19 and 25 points respectively. Penn's big men were not so impressive, though 6-10 sophomore Tom Mallison did look good in a 13-point performance. The Quakers, however, completely dominated rebounding, 49 to 27.

One encouraging note for the Crimson was the fine play of 6-6 Lynn Bennion. Against Princeton he scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds; he may be able to provide Harvard with some of the height the team so desparately needs.

Both Penn and Princeton are now 4-0 in Ivy competition, and this weekend's games only strengthened the impression that Penn is definitely the team to beat in the League. Columbia holds down third place with a 3-0 mark. Cornell was knocked out of contention Saturday when it lost its second League game, to Brown 68-66.