Harrison quickly outlined what he was up against in recruiting talent which he said was the most important part of building a team.

"We can't travel to see players in distant locations. I never saw James Brown play before he came here though I had heard of him," he said.

"In addition coaches from other schools are smart. They ask a ball player, 'Why hasn't Harvard been down to talk to you?'" he added.

The University has a rule prohibiting coaches from initiating contact with high school athletes. Harvard cannot pay visiting teams enough money to induce them to come to Cambridge, Harrison said.

"Last year we gave Oral Roberts $200 to travel here. When we went down to North Carolina do you know what they gave us?" he asked leaning forward.

"Five thousand dollars," he said, relaxing again.

"Harvard does not practice as long as other schools. We accomodate the players' schedules and academic requirements. We don't run off-season training or summer camps," he added.

Harrison said that some schools have massive budgets for basketball and gave Rhode Island's $90,000 funding as an example.

"If a kid wants to be a great ballplayer it's probably better for him to go to UCLA where basketball will run his life," he said.

"The ball player who comes here has decided that there are things just as important, if not more so, than basketball," he added.

Crimson guard Jim Fitzsimmons, who transferred here from Duke, said he feels the same way.

"Duke was not consonant with my academic needs so I left. But I would be a better basketball player now had I stayed," he said, adding that he did not regret the decision.

The Crimson reported a confrontation between Harrison and Fitzsimmons during the Columbia game last Saturday. Both parties said that the incident was misreported.

"The story was completely misleading and one more example of unknowledgeable reporting," the head coach said.

"We had no altercation and that kind of false story only hurts the team," said Fitzsimmons.