The largest Briggs Athletics Center of the year Saturday night witnessed the Harvard men's basketball team's finest performance of the still young season, which is quick becoming one of the squad's finest campaigns ever

Harvard remained undefeated by rebounding from an early nine-point deficit and snagging an impressive 56-51 victory over a scrappy Manhattan squad

The win, before 875 partisan fans, left the Crimson holding a 5-0 record --the best Harvard start since the 1957-58 team opened 6-0.

Records don't really turn me on, said Harvard Coach Frank McLaughlin, whose troops have won six in a row dating back to last year "But playing well does, and we're going pretty good now."

Indeed After a sluggish start that included three cheap victories over three interior opponents. Harvard Saturday night finally passed its first legitimate test of the sear.

"This was a good one for us," said McLaughlin, who had a list of reasons why "for starters, they're a good team.

"And they resemble Penn and Cornell [who, with Harvard, are the fac to take the 1984-85 Ivy League title] and this shows what we can do against teams like that."

"I think this shows we're much better than anything we've shown so far," added senior Co-Captain Bob Eerry, who continues to regain the outstanding touch that seemed to chide him during the second half of last year.

Perhaps more important than the win was the Crimson's strong showing in front of Manhattan, which owns one or the five votes that sends teams to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) in March.

Manhattan reportedly cast the only vote against Harvard a year ago, and that was enough to keep the Cantabs out of the post-season tourney.

The reason? A 22 point lasper victory over the Crimson that saw Harvard play one of its worst game in years.

"They basically kept us out of the NIT last year," said Harvard's Keith Webster, who Saturday night broke out of a season long slump that had kept him on the bench at game's start.

"If it comes down to the NIT again this year, they'd have to vote or us," Webster added.

For the first 12 minutes Saturday night, though, if looked like the Jaspers (now 2-4) would only vote to keep Harvard on their schedule.

Because in those first dozen minutes Harvard shot an abominable 125 from the floor and continually turned the ball over to the sharp shooting visitors, who built early leads of 14-5 and 16-9.