Back in the neighborhood, basketball is The Sport Kids learn to shoot and to play pickup, horse and around the world almost as soon as they learn to walk, even the girls.

Sure, footballs do get tossed around in the Bronx, and warm weekend afternoons are reserved for softball. But even on the hottest slimmer days there's basketball, neighborhood playground basketball.

That the kind of hoop the Harvard Classics basketball club plays--a physical, take no-prisoners neighborhood-type game that goes with the way the squad looks. They're mismatched disheveled and a bit raggedy-- but definitely exciting.

The Classics excited the Harvard men's j.v. right out of Briggs Athletic Center last night, demolishing a better-coached, but Reading Period-deleted jayvee squad, 78-48.

Even the second-half officials--Harvard Coaches Julio Diaz and Steve Bzmowski--couldn't help the hosts, who trailed 34-27 at the half.

But the players never gave up, they just kept working at it. On the Harvard j.v., in the world of 5:15 starts and late, long practices, you never give up.

You just keep working at it, because all the laboring in obscurity is, somehow, worth it. For the few who reach the big time and the many who don't just playing basketball is enough.

But someday, you could be Arne Duncan, going from the j.v. as a freshman to the varsity starting lineup as a sophomore. Or you could be Carm Scarpa, making varsity as a junior.

Yesterday' showing not-withstanding, a few of the j.v. players may play varsity someday. But a few of the Classics already have.

In case you were wondering what happened to last year's varsity bench, the Classics play Suffolk Community College Friday at 5 p.m. before the women's varsity game against Princeton.

Composed of former varsity and j.v. players, as well as an assortment of refueses from other sports, Harvard basketball at the club level is a treat for fans of the neighborhood game.

If he Classics' rotating lineup allows, you might see Ben Danielson late of the varsity, who led the club yesterday with 18 points. You might see Felipe Farley, who in days of yore drew more fanstical cheering even than Duncan did.

You might see Kevin Boyle do his finest frog imitations. You might also see one of the smoothest ballhandlers to frequent Briggs, senior Kyle Standley, like Boyle a three-year varsity veteran.

Last year, while the women played Princeton at Briggs, the men traveled to New Jersey and escaped from Jadwin Gym with a 55-50 victory their first in 25 years.

In the clutch, with foul trouble closing in on his squad, Coach Frank McLaughlin looked to his bench and came up with Standley, not an offensive dynamo but a good demonstration of the legend on the back of this season's practice jerseys: "DEFENSE WINS" Harvard did.

This Friday, if the same situation arises, there's no telling what the pines will produce. It certainly won't be Standley, but without an equally talented substitute, the Crimson could be lost. After all, Harvard fell to Dartmouth last Saturday, after defeating the Big Green by 15 points in December.

Faced once again with foul trouble, McLaughlin, not known for substituting freely, had to turn to Bob Daugherty--a fine point guard, but without the intimidating physical presence that demolished the Big Green offense in the first matchup of the season.

The resulting lineup, faced with a fiery, physical Dartmouth offense, just couldn't pull the contest out, even when Pat Smith returned in place of Daugherty. But they certainly did try. Like the j.v. they just kept working at it.

And on Friday, while the big guys are trying to prove they deserve their position as a contender for the league crown and aren't just dark horses, the Classics will take on Suffolk.

Don't miss it--it's right in the neighborhood.