PHILADELPHIA--Even the best comebacks sometimes aren't enough.

That lesson has become very familiar to the Harvard men's basketball team, which forced a tough Penn squad into overtime, but fell short, 83-79, here in front of 2556 fans at the Palestra last night.

Down by 11 points with less than four minutes left in regulation, the Crimson rallied back to within three points on a Dana Smith layup with 12 seconds left on the clock.

After Penn inbounded the ball, Neil Phillips knocked the ball loose from Quaker freshman Ben Spiva and into the hands of Tri-Captain Mike Gielen, who sank a three-pointer to knot the score at 73 as time ran out.

Carried by its momentum, the Crimson jumped out to a 2-point lead halfway through the extra period. But after David Lang missed a pair of free throws, the Quakers--aided by strong offensive rebounding--came back and pulled ahead for the victory.

It was the second time in two weeks that Harvard had battled back to force the game into overtime, but lost in the extra period. Dartmouth beat the Crimson, 91-89, last week in double overtime.

"You can't make a big deal out of it," Harvard Coach Pete Roby said, referring to the overtime losses. "You can't feel sorry for yourself because no one else will fell sorry for you."

The loss dropped Harvard's record to 8-11, 3-4 Ivy, while Penn's mark improved to 6-11, 4-2 Ivy.

The story of the game was the success of the Quaker's rebounding. Penn had more offensive rebounds on the night (23) than the Crimson had on defense (22).

"We knew coming in that rebounding was the key," Roby said. "We weren't equal to the task."

The Crimson rally was led Phillips, who scored a career-high 22 points, including four clutch three-pointers in the second half. Gielen added 21 for the cagers.

"You have to give them some credit," Penn Coach Tom Schneider said. "They made some incredible three-pointers down the stretch. We were very lucky."

Harvard needed to come back after Penn exploded on an 11-0 run early in the second half. The Quaker rally was led by senior guard Tyrone Pitts, who had 18 points and freshman forward Dane Watts, who chipped in 16.

Another factor helping the Quakers was questionable home-court officiating. The Crimson was called for 27 fouls while Penn was nailed for only 17.

"A lot of people might say that [the officiating] was the reason but a lot of it was our fault," Phillips said. "We didn't come out and establish ourselves on the boards early on, and when we did so later, we didn't get the calls."

In a closely fought first half--in which the lead changed six times--the Quakers capitilized on the larger size of its starting frontcourt.

Despite shooting a weak 34 percent from the field, Penn outrebounded the Crimson on the offensive boards, 14-4, to come away with a 34-31 halftime lead.

"We feel we should have won this game," Phillips said.

"The fact remains that we wanted to win this weekend and now we can't do that," Roby said. "But at least we can go one and one."

THE NOTEBOOK: Princeton upset Dartmouth by 23 points last night to give the Ivy leader its first loss...Junior Kevin Collins missed action because of the flu. It is unclear whether the sixth man will return to action tonight against the Tigers...Sophomore Malcolm Hollensteiner saw action for the first time in five games.