PRINCETON--N.J.--For the first 13 minutes of the Harvard-Princeton basketball game last Friday night it looked like a thriller was in the making. Harvard and Princeton were both red-hot from the floor and the score was tied at 24-24.

But then the roof caved in for the Crimson cagers as a group of talented Tiger sophomores blitzed the visiting Harvard team en route to an 11 point half-time lead and a 63-49 victory.

Princeton's star center, Andy Rimol, left the Jadwin Gym floor early in the game with an injured Knee but junior Tim Van Blommesteyn, a 6 ft. 3 in. guard, dropped in a career high 16 points and sophomores Bob Slaughter, Barnes Hauptfuhrer and Armond Hill pulled together to down the Crimson.

Tony Jenkins was top scorer for Harvard with 13 points and Ken Wolfe followed with 12. Jenkins added 7 rebounds. Harvard never got untracked after the Princeton flurry that jumped the score in favor of the Tigers to 39-28 at the half and the crowd of 2000 rooted the home team on to a lopsided win.

After the game, in a subdued locker room Coach Tom Sanders said "We didn't look good," and he commented on the Princeton first half flurry. "We lost the ball a few times, they fast broke us a couple...that was it."

On January 7 the Crimson five lost another close contest to Northeastern, 55-54, on a freak play. Lou Silver had two foul shots with two seconds to play with the score 55-53 in favor of Northeastern. He missed the first, and then Northeastern called time.

The second foul shot saw Silver fling the ball against the backboard in the hope that a Harvard player might recover the rebound for a basket. The ball dropped into the basket and doomed Harvard's try. Wolfe led Harvard with 16 points, Jenkins tallied 15 and Arnie Needleman chipped in with 10.