The last time the Crimson played the Blue Devils, it lost by a school-record 76 points.

Fortunately, the Blue Devil squad the Harvard men's basketball team will play tonight does not have players named Christian Laettner and Robert Brickey on its roster, and it does not hail from Durham, North Carolina.

Tonight, Harvard (2-4) will travel to New Britain, Connecticut to tap off against the Blue Devils of Central Connecticut State University, not Duke. The contest will be the Crimson's fifth contest in the last nine days.

"[Fatigue] is definitely a factor," Harvard Coach Peter Roby said. "In fact, it was a factor Wednesday night."

Wednesday night Harvard dropped a 19-point decision to the Holy Cross Crusaders. The Crimson had jumped out to the lead on the strength of a 20-8 first-half run. But the Crusaders dominated play late in the game, going on a 30-8 streak in the second half to seal the victory. It was the Crimson's third defeat in four games.

CCSU (1-4) is a young and inexperienced squad, with freshmen and sophomores accounting for nine of its 15 players. Coach Mike Brown is in just his second season at the helm of the Blue Devils program.

Two of the Blue Devils' top three scorers are freshmen--guards Kevin Swann (10.8 points per game) and Marc Rybczyk (8.2 p.p.g.). Rybczyk, who may start tonight, was the leading scorer in the team's only victory, a 83-55 whipping of C.W. Post.

The CCSU guards will be under fire against the Crimson press, which has forced many of the 16 turnovers each suffered by Holy Cross and Brandeis, Harvard's last two opponents.

"We're going to do the same things we've been doing all year," Roby said.

The Blue Devils usually run a ball-control offense, relying on outside shooting by 6-ft., 6-in. forward Scott Weeden, the team's leading scorer (13.4 ppg) and, as a sophomore, one of the Blue Devils' floor leaders.

While CCSU tries to hold the ball, Harvard will be trying to set the pace of the game at a higher level.

"The main thing we're going to try to do is up the tempo because they don't want us to," Roby said.

When Harvard is not on the break, it will undoubtedly try to find sophomore forward Ron Mitchell, who has been the Crimson's most potent force in the last two games. Mitchell led all scorers with 21 points against Holy Cross, and his work in the paint keyed Harvard's second-half come-back over Brandeis.

If the Crimson can control the tempo, it should be a run-and-gun affair, with Harvard doing most of the running and gunning. But if CCSU takes a page out of Brandeis' playbook and succeeds in walking the ball through the park all night, the Crimson will have its hands full with another see-saw contest.

With the experts predicting that Harvard's see-saw will crash down next week against Boston College, the Crimson needs to come out of Connecticut on the upswing. Devilish Dejavu