The Crimson basketball team rebounded its way to a 35-29 half-time lead against defending Ivy League champion Penn last night in the IAB, but the Quakers turned the game around in the second half and topped Harvard, 81-62.

With precise execution Penn scored eight points at the start of the last half while the Crimson gave up the ball without a shot three times. However, with eight minutes left in the game, Harvard narrowed Penn's lead to six, and the Quakers went into a stall.

The stall worked. The Crimson had to foul, and Penn converted the foul shots to put the game out of reach.

"We played the worst basketball we've ever played in the first half," said Penn coach Dick Harter, "but in the second half we played, unquestionably, better than we ever have."

Harvard took advantage of the Quaker's poor shooting in the first half, but couldn't move to a commanding lead because of its turnovers. "The first half made the big difference," said Harvard head coach Bob Harrison after the game. "We had them in foul trouble, and they weren't shooting, but we gave up the ball too many times without even getting a shot," he explained.

Sophomore forward James Brown, who played his best half of the winter in the first half, paced the Crimson in scoring and rebounding with 24 points and 11 rebounds.

Harvard's rebounding in the first half gave it the advantage it had. Grabbing 28 rebounds to Penn's 18, the Crimson overcame the Quakers near the middle of the first half, and went into the locker room with a narrow lead. But the second half has plagued Harvard all season (Michigan, Oregon, Ohio State), and Penn capitalized.

"We didn't crash the boards enough in the second half," Brown, who snatched ten of his rebounds in the first half, said after the game, "We have to put two good halves of basketball together to win, and we didn't do that tonight," he added.

Harvard, whose Ivy League record is 1-1, gets a chance to do that tomorrow afternoon when it faces Princeton for a 2 p.m. game in the IAB.

The Tigers, who lost to Penn, 70-62, earlier this week, are 3-6 for the season, but have one of the top teams in the Ivies, and one of the best guards in the League, sophomore Brian Taylor.

Taylor tallied 28 points against Penn Monday night, and if the Crimson slows him down, it will rattle the Tiger offensive attack. Sophomore Ted Manakas, who is Princeton's second leading scorer at 16.4 points a game, teams with Taylor in the back court.

Freshmen Ken Wolfe and Tony Jenkins pushed the Yardling basketball team (4-3) over the 500 mark with an 88-66 triumph over Holy Cross last night in the IAB.