MEDFORD--Imagine if Duke played Harvard in basketball.

Ooops, they do.

Well, imagine if Miami football travelled to Cambridge to face the Crimson.

It would not be a pretty sight.

The Harvard-Tufts and Harvard- MIT squash matches are kind of like these no-contests, except yesterday Harvard did the dirty deed of annihilating its opponents.

With its lineup split between the Jumbos, the nation's 13th-ranked team, and the Engineers, the Crimson men's squash team (8-0 overall, 4-0 Ivy) still managed to crush both its local foes, 9-0. In fact, Harvard did not lose a single game all afternoon, notching a shutout tally of 54-0.

The racquetwomen (5-1 overall, 2-1 Ivy), last year's National Champions, enjoyed a little less success in their 8-1 victory over 12th-ranked Tufts (8-5). The lone loss went to junior Shannon Willey, who had never competed in a varsity match.

"I was nervous about playing varsity," Willey said. "I just didn't harness my energy properly and went out too hard in the beginning."

Willey won her first game, 18-16, but then dropped three consecutive contests.

Harvard's winning statistics surprise no one since the men, the top-ranked squad in the nation, and the 2nd-ranked women, have never lost a match and have rarely lost single games, to either Tufts or MIT

So, one might ask why Harvard goes up against Tufts or MIT, both of which lack the intense program Harvard has.

"We play because we have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose," Tufts Coach Bill Summer said. "Sure, some of our players are intimidated and embarassed. They think they look like fools when they play you guys. But most of them have fun out there."

Harvard Coach Steve Piltch cited tradition as a possible motive.

"They're a local team and there's a long history of play between us," Piltch said. "It gives some of our players who don't usually see varsity competition a chance to play and it gives our more experienced players a chance to enjoy the game."

This year, four of Tufts's men's players are seeing varsity competition for the first time, and when Tufts number-one seed Trip Navaro quit, the Harvard-Tufts matchup became even more lopsided.