(Special to the CRIMSON)

NEW YORK, Feb. 21-For a sevenminute stretch in tonight's basketball game against Columbia, Harvard failed to score a field goal. The Lions capitalized on the Crimson's poor shooting, and eventually handed Harvard its sixth straight loss, 94-69.

The Crimson defeat set the stage for next Friday's contest with Brown, which lost to Penn tonight, 84-56, for determining possession of the Ivy League cellar Harvard, which is 7-17 overall, now has a 1-11 Ivy mark, while the Bruins are 2-10 in the Ivies.

Early Errors

Both Columbia and the Crimson committed frequent errors in the first few minutes. When Harvard hit its cold spell. the Lions inched ahead. 10-3, at the midpoint of the half.

Then both teams started to unwind. The Crimson stayed within five points of Columbia, 23-18, on the strength of three jumpers by guard Matt Bozek, who paced Harvard with 24 tallies. Although Crimson guard Dale Dover finished with 21 points, Harvard never came closer than that.

With five minutes left in the halfs the Liens switched from a man-to-man defense to a zone and forced several Crimson turnovers. Columbia took advantage of these mistakes and moved to a commanding lead, 41-25, at the half-time.

"We Didn't Do It"

"We had our real trouble at the beginning when we were playing great defense, but couldn't score a basket," said coach Bob Harrison after the game. "They were ripe to be taken at the start, but we didn't do it," he added.

During much of the second half, Harvard and Columbia traded fast breaks. Lion All-Ivy guard Heyward Dotson, who led all scorers with 27 points, scored easy lay-ups on fast breaks or worked one-on-one for short jump shots.

When Dotson wasn't scoring, All-Ivy forward Jim McMillian was grabbing one of his game-leading 14 rebounds or making 15-foot jump shots. He finished with 25 points.