That overshadowed the final home appearances of Carrabino and fellow senior Co-Captain Bob Ferry, both of whom broke out of long slumps with fine performances Saturday night.

Carrabino, Harvard's all time leading scorer, pumped in 25 points and frustrated Cornell's Ken Bantum all night. Ferry, meanwhile, deposited 16 and pulled down a season-high eight boards.

"We needed this one,' Carrabino said. "We were down because we weren't playing well, and we knew it. We decided if we were going to lose, we were going to lose playing at 100 percent."

The Crimson earned the victory despite a 580 performance from the floor by the visitors, and despite almost blowing yet another big lead.

After Harvard had opened up an 11-point advantage early in the second half. Cornell pulled to within two, 48-46, on John Bajusz's 19-ft. jumper with 7:40 remaining.

"You always worry with a team like Cornell," Carrabino said. "You know they're going to make a run at you, but the key is you can't let them over the hump."

Harvard never did, and that forced Cornell to send the hosts to the foul line.

From there, the nation's most accurate team connected on 29 of 22 overall, and 17 of 18 in the final five minutes.

That was the biggest difference from the last time the two clubs met, when Harvard visited the charity stripe just 10 times the entire game.

The other big difference was that first place was on the line three weeks ago. After Saturday night, it's now just The Race for Second Place.