THIS IS A STORY about a different kind of Harvard sports team.

Different because it rides a rusty old van to away games with a driver who doubles as the team's coach. Different because its practices often begin at 8:30 p.m. and last into the wee hours of the night. Different because it boasts members from such exotic locales as the Ivory Coast, Sweden, Wyoming, and, of course, Jersey.

The team is the JV men's basketball squad.

JV athletes are an interesting breed. They're willng to toil in obscurity while their varsity brethren grab headlines and glory. This team is no different. It plays for no publicity at all. "When the season started, I told these guys `We're not playing for the Boston Herald,''' coach Steve Bzomowski said.

Bzomowski was certainly right about that. When you play in front of 50 fans, and 40 of them are from the other school, you better not be looking for publicity.

These players have no illusions about their chances to get up into the big leagues of Ivy competition. "A couple of kids are potential varsity players," Bzomowsky said. "Some of these kids, though, didn't even play much in high school."

In addition to suffering perpetual anonymity, the team also endures low priority on the athletic department's budget. "We didn't get any sweats," one player said, "but we do get to eat at Burger King on road trips."

Hey boosters, forget the illegal cars and cash. We're talking Burger King here.

The team isn't, however, excluded from all of the benefits enjoyed by the varsity. "My philosophy is an extension of [Varsity] Coach [Pete] Roby's philosophy," Bzomowsky said. "We believe we're helping young people become better people through working hard and doing things the right way."

Keep in mind that this is coming from a man who spent nine years of his life as a teacher working with special needs kids and who, before this year, coached at Harvard for nothing.

But what about winning? "Winning is not the most important thing," Bzomowsky said. "But I'm very interested in winning."

Still, there are no illusions about the importance of the JV's won-loss record (which currently stands at 4-6). Because freshmen can now compete at the varsity level (they couldn't in the early '70s), the JV is no longer a one-year apprenticeship for incoming star recruits.

"Since freshmen have become eligible, JV teams have become the poor cousins of the varsity," Bzomowsky said a little wistfully.

But poor cousins have names and faces, too. And the team's roster isn't just a list of names; it turns out to be a veritable hodge-podge of individuals and personalities:

Adolfo Birch. Soph., Nashville, Tennessee. Very interested in improvement. Constantly requests progress reports. Also believes himself to be the only Houston Rockets fan at Harvard.