A stumbling Boston College Eagles quintet laden with local talent swoops into the IAB tonight to tap off with the Crimson in the first round of the sixth annual Beanpot Tournament.

Boston University tangles with Northeastern at Cabot Gymnasium to close out the first-round action.

The Eagles raked the Crimson in their first encounter this season, 72-71, when Ernie Cobb floated home the winning jumper with only four seconds left to play.

Since their initial clash both teams have run into major snafus. B.C., which loomed as the cream of New England's basketball crop before the season began, has tottered to a 5-7 mark. The Crimson had double trouble over the weekend, bowing to Ivy frontrunner Princeton 62-57, after hanging tough until the waning moments, and then dropping a 63-53 decision to Penn the next day.

Last Win

Harvard last won the tourney in 1973 while copping first place twice in the last six years, second only to B.C.

Originally shunned by Boston's basketball cognoscenti when it was held at the Boston Garden, the Beanpot has enjoyed mounting popularity in the past few seasons at its four campus loci. Although the tourney has been played in the shadow of hockey's own Beanpot spectacular, last year's B.C.-Harvard final drew a crowd of 4000. Despite its place of preeminence in the Boston sporting scene, the hockey tournament drew a paltry gate of 587 spectators in its first year.

Led by its explosive tandem of Bill Carey and Brian Banks, the Crimson hopes to stave off a repeat of last year's 86-78 shellacking at the hands of B.C. in the final. In that contest, the Eagles' Wilford Morrison swarmed the Crimson defense with 31 markers and Bob Carrington clicked for 27. Cyrus Booker netted 20 points and Carey shot 9-15 from the floor to supply the Crimson's fireworks. This season, Carey has been scoring at a 17 point-per-game clip while Banks has carded a 13.8 average and scoured the boards for close to 14 rebounds a game.

The Eagles' arsenal features a frontline of home-grown talent labeled "the Boston three," composed of 6'6" leading scorer Carrington, Bill Collins, and Morrison. Despite its national ranking at the outset of the season in Sports Illustrated, B.C. has felled only two first-division teams in the course of the campaign, as its big time illusions have gone poof. B.C.'s fastbreak has been marred by sloppy ballhandling and the one-guard offense has yet to jell. After its most recent loss, an 88-70 drubbing by Villanova, one basketball pundit quipped, "B.C. opened a bakery to sell turnovers."

Although the Eagles have sorely missed the playmaking ability of backcourt ace Mel Weldon, lost to graduation, Northeastern coach Jim Calhoun attributed B.C.'s sluggish output so far to constant fluctuations in the starting lineup. Constant substitutions from B.C.'s talentstacked bench result in "just playing to get playing time in," said Calhoun.

Nevertheless, the Eagles's powderkeg offense that has been smoldering in oblivion could ignite at any given moment. In Calhoun's words, "B.C. can blow out any of the three teams just on talent." In short, a win tonight would give Harvard's cagemen an excellent chance of putting the wraps on the Beanpot crown in the finale tomorrow night.

Lack of Depth

Both B.C. and Northeastern have been plagued by lack of depth. Northeastern enters the Beanpot with a 7-4 mark, the only winning squad in the tourney despite the absence of 6'7" center Mark van Landenham, who is out with a broken ankle. The Huskies' workhorse is 6'2" All-American guard John Clark. Winless B.U. has probably faced the stiffest competition this season. The squad's southern road swing turned into a debacle as Mercer, Citadel, Rollins and Southern Florida successively lashed the Terriers.

The Beanpot, however, has proved a godsend for B.U. In 1974, the Terriers stunned B.C. when Neil Burns canned a game-winning bucket at the buzzer and went on to become the tourney's MVP. The 6'5" Burns is the senior co-captain of this year's B.U. quintet and has been the scourge of the opposition coming into the Beanpot, shooting a fiery 55 per cent from the floor.

The Beanpot has emerged as the undisputed showcase for New England basketball talent. A number of pro teams, including the Rockets, Knicks and Bullets, will have scouts at courtside. The result of the second Harvard-B.C. hoedown should definitely lend focus to the season to come as Ivy competition gets into high gear, since both teams' inconsistent performances to date resemble the fever chart of a malaria victim.