Just as everybody was getting used to perpetual losing efforts by the Harvard basketball team, the cagers pulled a fast one and came up with their first win in their last 11 tries, a 68-64 nipping of Brown Saturday night as the sparsely-populated IAB.

The close contest was not decided until the last 15 seconds. With Harvard on top 66-64, a double-teamed Jonas Honick found Bob Hooft alone in the lane. Hooft laid Honick's pass in and the Bruins found themselves mathematically eliminated.

If Johnny Most had been there he would have called the contest a "hectic ding-donger"--Harvard dinged and Brown donged for the entire first half, which saw the Crimson on top 29-27 at intermission.

But in the end it was Harvard's sharp shooting at the free-throw line (an incredible 90 per cent)and domination of the boards (the Crimson outrebounded Brown 24-18) that thwarted any bids by the Bruins to hand them yet another loss.

Brown gunner Brian Saunders was stalled in neutral for most of the tilt, but caught fire in the waning minutes to cut Harvard's lead to only a bucket several times. A slew of penalty foul situations at the end kept the Crimson in front, as they hit 11 of 12 from the charity stripe.

Hooft and Gary Ackerman paced the hoopsters from the floor with 17 points each. Ackerman also cleaned the glass to lead all players with 8 rebounds.

The cagers have a challenging weekend coming up, with Ivy League hoop V.I.P.s Penn and Princeton sauntering up north for what they think will be easy conference victories. Only time will tell whether Harvard's renewed intensity will be fuel for some surprises.