If ever the cliche about victory being a team effort fit, this was the game. Minus the very large presence of center Brian Banks--who will sit out January to do coursework--Harvard's basketball team took to the Northeastern hardwood last night and turned in its best showing of teamwork, hustling and textbook basketball so far this year to win, 83-80.

Coach Frank McLaughlin sent just seven players into the game, but those seven played like a bunch of inspired Bill Bradleys.

Cyrus Booker, with 23 counters, and Mike Stenhouse, with 17, led the scoring parade, but it was a quintessential team effort--with Glenn Fine, Bobby Allen, Roosevelt Cox, Bob Hooft and Gary Ackerman playing supporting roles--that did the trick.

The teams played a scrappy brand of back-and-forth basketball in the first half, with the lead being traded more often than Richie Allen before the Huskies took a 43-42 lead to the locker room.

Banks's absence loomed large early in the second period when a rash of police brutality on the official's part put forwards Bob Hooft and Roosevelt Cox in the clink, with five fouls each, just seven minutes into the period.

With Northeastern trailing by just three as it entered the penalty situation moments later, the Cabot Gym crowd began to sense victory.

But that's when Harvard came alive, breaking the Huskies' swarming press with a rainbow assortment of crisp passes, jumpers, driving layups and shots off the glass.

Despite a furious pace set by Northeastern, the Crimson maintained a four-to-nine point lead between the 10-minute mark and the final buzzer, when Northeastern high-scorer Dave Caligaris (28 points) sank a lay-up to close the margin to three.

It was a five-player thrust that kept Harvard in the lead, as floor general Fine dribbled deftly and handed off assists, Booker and Stenhouse took care of the scoring, Allen defended Caligaris as well as can be expected, and Ackerman chipped in with a couple of uncharacteristic gyrating lay-ups.

Booker's slam-dunk at the 3:15 mark pretty much put the game away, but the important news out of Cabot Gym last night was not the victory. It was that the Harvard five, for the first time this season, played 40 minutes as a cohesive team.