It wasn't pretty. Gosh, it wasn't even ugly.

In the Crimson's home opener last night, Boston College demolished the Harvard men's basketball team, 121-80, in front of 1800 fans at Briggs Cage. The shellacking dropped the cagers' record to 1-2, and was the largest point total ever given up by the Crimson.

"It's embarrassing " Harvard Coach Pete Roby. "There's no other way to put it. Nobody likes to lose by 40 points."

It didn't start so bad.

Harvard opened the scoring when Tri-Captain Bill Mohler hit a pair of free throws. Then, the Eagle pressure defense began to frustrate the Crimson.

Aided by at least eight Harvard turnovers in the first five minutes, B.C. went on an impressive 25-2 scoring run to pull ahead, 25-4, with 14:41 left in the half. Eagle forward Steve Benton scored eight points in the run before the Crimson called for a timeout.

"We wanted to decide how we were going to break the pressure because we were too unorganized," Roby said. "We lost our poise."

The Crimson managed to reorganize, and made a surprising comeback. Sparked by three-point shots by Tri-Captain Mike Gielen and Ralph James, Harvard scored 16 unanswered points to pull within seven points, 25-18, with 11:41 left.

Then Dana Barros started to take charge. The star Eagle guard woke up his squad with a basket under the backboard, and was fouled on the play. Barros, who scored 17 points in the half, made the free throw and started to break the Harvard press.

The two squads exchanged baskets for several minutes, and the Crimson was able to pull no closer than 37-32 after a David Lang jumpshot at the 6:25 mark.

"We got back into the game, and made it a game, and everbody got a sense of relaxation," Gielen said. "It wasn't urgent anymore. People started taking dumb shots, and stopped boxing out, and they took advantage of it."

Facing a looser press, Barros scored nine points--including an amazing 360-degree spin-in-the-air jumpshot that few watchers will forget--to lead a 23-10 Eagle scoring run to close out the half with B.C. on top, 60-42.

Dominance

With three fouls on Mohler and forward Kyle Dodson by halftime, the Crimson couldn't play as aggresively under the boards in the second half. B.C took advantage and controlled the boards.

Six-ft., 9-in. center Corey Beasley scored 15 second-half points to lead the Eagles, who shot an unbelievable 75 percent in the half. When guard Jamie Benton hit Tyrone Scott for an alley-oop slam dunk at the 9:35 mark to give B.C. a 40-point lead, 95-55, the Crimson's fate was sealed.