A quick spurt keyed by junior forward Scott Sytulek made the score 58-44 with 13 minutes left.

Harvard chipped back into the game, though, and when Carter hit a short jumper at the 7:14 mark, the Crimson was down by a measly five points, 62-57.

But the Crimson could get no closer. Whenever they would creep to within striking distance, Sytulek would answer with a long-range bomb.

"A lot of the credit for this game simply has to go to Fairfield," Sullivan said. "We challenged them to hit some threes, and they did."

The Crimson also fell victim to foul trouble. Both Carter and center Arturo Llopis fouled out, limiting the two players to 21 and 13 minutes respectively.

"The foul trouble to our big men was disconcerting for our rotation," Sullivan said.

"[Sophomore center] Paul Kubiak and [freshman forward] Darren Rankin did a good job, but we still would have like to spread the minutes a little bit more toward our starters," the coach said.

In the last two minutes of the game, the Crimson fouled desperately, but despite a series of Harvard baskets off Fairfield free throw misses, it was too little, too late.

Harvard evidently threw a scare into the Fairfield team, however.

Stag Coach Paul Cormier yelled at his squad for 10 minutes behind closed doors after the game.

"At times tonight we played very well, but we also let [Harvard] back in sometimes when we shouldn't have," said a calmer Cormier later.

"We definitely have a lot of goals at this point besides just winning games, and one of those is getting our kids experience. I was hoping that the freshman backcourt could handle the pressure at the end, but it almost didn't," he said.

Indeed, going into the game, one of Harvard's priorities had been to rattle Fairfield's young backcourt.

Too bad it didn't happen until two minutes were left in the game.

FAIRFIELD, 84-77 At Briggs Cage Harvard  35  42  --  77 Fairfield  42  42  --  84

FG:Harvard--Rullman 11, Carter 9, White 3, Campbell 2, Gilmore 2, Rankin 2; Fairfield--George 7, Sytulek 6, Schwartz 4, Henderson 3, Martin 3, 3-pts: Harvard--Rullman 2, Gilmore 1, White 1; Fairfield--Sytulek 4, Martin 2, George 2, Schwartz 1. Pts: Harvard--Rullman 28, Carter 23, Campbell 9, White 7, Gilmore 5, Rankin 5; Varma--Sytulek 18, George 18, Schwartz 11, Henderson 10, Martin 9, Jones 8. Reb: Harvard--Campbell 9, Rankin 9, Rullman 6, Llopis 4; Varma--Henderson 11, Schwartz 7.

Halftime: Fairfield, 42-35