"I have a lot of respect for both of them," freshman forward Neil Phillips says of Scarpa and fellow senior guard Pat Smith. "What they've done as far as sacrificing, helping the younger players on the team out. Just the way they never complain when things are down."

Or how much his hustle and determination in practice have made just about everybody forget his height.

"Nobody wants to go against Carmen head-to-head in practice," Coach Pete Roby says, "because they're afraid he'll rip them."

"Carmen is a great defensive player," Phillips agrees. "He's single-handedly improved my ball-handling. When you're not going to face any better defense in the league."

Or how much his intelligence about the game has taught the inexperienced cagers to play smarter.

"Our team just doesn't see things out there," Scarpa continues, trying to explain the cagers' 6-18 mark. "Sometimes I have problems saying, 'how can he not see that.'''

But Scarpa doesn't just sit on the bench during games, mumbling to himself; he's always standing, always shouting advice, always explaining things to the players sitting around him on the bench. "I consider myself the captain of the bench," Scarpa said after an early-season loss at Princeton.

No Spud Webb

"You've got to remember he's five-six," junior guard Keith Webster says. "People say, 'Spud Webb is five-five,' well, Carmen doesn't have that kind of physical talent. Carmen is slow, Carmen is small. As far as natural ability, he wasn't blessed with a lot. But he was blessed with a knowledge of the game, and he's made the most of it.

Scarpa's acute understanding of basketball has led almost everyone who knows him--literally--to suggest a coaching career.

"In some ways he reminds me a lot of myself when I played in college," says Roby, who captained his Dartmouth squad as a senior even though he was a non-starter. "Neither of us had a lot of talent, we just get by on guile and hard work."

But Scarpa, an economics major currently working on a thesis on the economic practices of NFL owners, has no plans for a coaching career right now.

"I think I could be a good coach," he admits (his father was a football and basketball coach for many years), "but after coming to Harvard and spending that money, I don't think I could do that to [my father]."

But don't bet a lot on this one. "I think I could be a good coach," Scarpa repeats after a moment's thought, "I mean big-time. I mean I want to win the NCAA title."

Aside from his height, there is nothing small about this man--in his dreams, desires, or expectations.

Nothing.