Special to the CRIMSON

ITHACA, N. Y., Feb. 20-With 12 minutes left in tonight's basketball game against Cornell. Harvard captain Ernest Hardy poured in three straight jump shots to bring the Crimson within seven points of the Big Red, but Cornell quickly jumped farther ahead and went on to win. 85-74.

The loss, which gave Harvard a 7-16 overall mark, mired the Crimson in last place in Ivy League standings with a 1-10 record.

At the start of the first half. Harvard fell behind quickly and trailed by 12 after eight minutes of play. In the next five minutes, the Crimson narrowed the gap to five points, but that was as close as it came the rest of the night.

Because of miserable shooting-24 percent in the first half-and poor ballhandling. Harvard was down. 38-21, at halftime.

Cornell, on the other hand, scored on 53 per cent of its shots from the floor in the first half, and capitalized on the Crimson's frequent errors.

Harvard guard Dale Dover, who continues to lead the Crimson with an average of 19 points per game, had 18 tonight, and Matt Bozek added 17. Cornell's Bill Schwartzkopf grabbed 16 rebounds to secure his hold on the Ivy rebounding lead, while second-place Hardy snatched ten before fouling out with eight minutes to go.

"We never got started in the first half," said forward Mike Janzcewski, who scored 13 points. It seemed like we were just throwing the ball away on every play. It gets pretty discouraging to run down the floor and then have to run right back without getting a shot." he added.

During the first six minutes of the second half, Harvard started to fast break and closed Cornell's advantage to nine points 47-38. Then Big Red reserve Tom Sparks, who tallied 21 points, made a jump shot, and guard Gene Williams stole the ball for a lay-up to put Cornell ahead by 13.

Hardy then scored three long jump shots to put the Crimson within seven at 51-44. Cornell took command again on a 15-foot jumper by: Schwarzkopf and stayed comfortably for the remainder of the game.

Saturday night. Harvard meets Columbia for the second time in two weeks. In Cambridge, the Crimson played even with the Lions near the end of the game and only lost, 73-72, after missing a last second jump shot.