Overpowering Columbia on the boards and on defense, the Harvard basketball team ran its way to an 85-66 victory last night in the LAB.

The triumph, which boosted the Crimson's overall record to 13-10, was the squad's eighth Ivy League win this season, one more than a Harvard team has ever won in League play. By winning. Harvard tied Columbia for second place in the Ivy standings. Both have 8-3 records.

After four minutes of the first half, the Crimson exploded for eight straight points to pull ahead 17-9. Led by senior guard Dale Dover, who paced Harvard with 23 points on 10-of-16 from the floor. the Crimson increased its advantage to 41-26 at half-time.

Columbia opened the game in a zone defense, but Harvard, playing as it did against Princeton's zone last week, moved the ball inside to sophomore forward Floyd Lewis and junior center Brian Newmark for easy baskets. And when the Lions went into a man-for-man defense, the Crimson worked one-on-one underneath.

"They have a lot of physical power which they used effectively tonight." Columbia head coach Jack Rohan said after the game. "In New York, they didn't use their physical strength, but tonight both defensively and underneath, they used it." he explained.

At the start of the second half. Columbia narrowed Harvard's lead, but with 15 minutes to go, the Crimson hit a series of fast break lay-ups to increase its advantage to 58-42. From that point on, the Lions never came closer than ten points.

"The first half made the big difference," Harvard head coach Bob Harrison said after the victory. "We forced them out of their defensive patterns with a tough defense, and our full-court press forced them to make 13 turnovers to our six," he said.

Tonight the Crimson has a chance to move closer to its first second-place finish in history when it meets Cornell at 8 p.m. in the IAB.

Big Red

The Big Red, which upset Yale last week in Ithaca, is tied for last place in the League with the Elis. In its last meeting with Harvard, it fell, 80-60, to a Crimson second-half explosion.

In the preliminary last night, the Harvard freshman team squashed St. Anselm's, 98-63, for its tenth win against five losses.