An SRO crowd crammed into the IAB expecting to witness another Saturday night shootout, but it was the Columbia Lions who came out with all barrels blazing--and when the lights dimmed they were picking lead out of the Crimson's liver.

The Lions won in an 88-64 walkaway in which they uncorked a 71 per cent shooting spree from the field in the first half and netted 11-13 foul shots for a 45-29 halftime lead.

They popped through their first seven field-goal attempts and 11 of their first 13 to open up an 11-point gap before Frank McLaughlin's gang could even unholster their six-shooters.

Columbia gunslingers Alton Byrd, Juan Mitchell and Shane Cotner all come from west of the Mississippi and are joined by fellow junior Ricky Free, a Brooklynite who matriculated in bending basketball rims at Boys High. They combined to discharge a 58 point barrage. Mitchell had 18 points and Byrd stung Glenn Fine for 16 points.

Buzzing through the Crimson defense like a dyspeptic bumblebee, Byrd picked up his 317th career assist in the first half to shatter the Columbia record set by Elliot Woolfe.

Not All There

"We were flat the whole weekend," said Harvard coach McLaughlin. "There seemed to be something missing on Wednesday and Thursday in practice," he said. He added, "they're playing for the league title and that's an incentive."

Harvard was never able to harass the Lions' deliberate, patterned offense sufficiently. "They handle the ball well and we had to adjust to their style of play," McLaughlin said. Cy Booker led the cagers with 12 points, while Brian Banks chipped in 10. Bob Hooft scored 11 points but rode the pine most of the second half. Playmaker Fine, after being tapped for last week's All-ECAC team, failed to score.

Columbia jumped out to a 16-5 lead when Cotner dropped a corner jumper. Jeff Combs, who shot four-for-four in the half, had swished a 20-footer to give the Lions a 12-2 edge

Harvard drew to within 22-15 after Hooft and Bobby Allen each bagged a brace of buckets from the corner, but that was the closest the cagers were ever to come.

Mike Stenhouse came off the bench to hit twice from downtown, and Mark Hadley scored seven points in a six-minute span to keep the hoopsters in the game, as his three-point play cut the Columbia margin to 40-29 with 1:23 left in the half.

Lion Eyes

In the second half, Columbia could have started their mascot Leo de Lion III and it wouldn't have altered the outcome. In a brief flurry, Booker scored three straight buckets for Harvard, and Allen drilled in a straightaway jumper to pull the cagers to within 53-40. The short-lived rally was snuffed when Byrd tipped-toed down the lane to give the Lions a commanding 57-40 lead.

Bronx-bred Gene Bentz bombed from the left corner to up the visitors' lead to 61-40. Free, who sat out the last ten minutes of the first half with three fouls but still scored 16 points, then applied the coup de grace when he slam-dunked for an in-surmountable 77-54 bulge with 5:00 left in the game.

The Lions, who are one game behind Penn in the Ivy League race, will run and gun with the Quakers and third-place Princeton next weekend in Morningside Heights. When the dust clears, one of the quintets will have earned an NCAA berth and the runner-up will go to the NIT.