Going into Wednesday's game against Fairfield, the Harvard men's basketball team was definitely in a spell. It had lost six games in a row, and against the Stags the Crimson wanted a victory, or at least to play well.

In the 87-82 loss, Harvard got one of its wishes. The Crimson kept close during most of the game, but wasn't able to keep up with Fairfield in the end.

"We played pretty well for the most part--better than we had been," sophomore Mike Gilmore (18 points) said. "It's tough to play at Fairfield, on the road."

Neck-and-Neck

The game was neck-and-neck for the first half, with Fairfield leading by one at intermission. But in the second period, the Stags were able to pull away with some big plays.

"They had a couple of big threes," Gilmore said. "Some of them were breakdowns by us, but some were just nice plays."

Harvard's offense tried its best to keep up in the second half, shooting 60 percent from the field and 63 percent on three-pointers, but it simply could not match Fairfield's pace.

"We could score whenever we wanted," freshman Kyle Snowden (17 points) said. "It was the best we've done in a while."

Scoring Easy

"At halftime, we found out that we could score on them," Gilmore said. "They pressed, and picked up the tempo, and we got some easy layups. We played well enough to win--we didn't get many calls our way, and we were on the road, and the big threes hurt us."

The Crimson, taking the non-conference loss in stride, is now looking forward to the resumption of its Ivy League schedule against Dartmouth on Saturday.

"We understand that we are on a bit of a skid now," Snowden said. "So we just want to take it one step at a time, and put some things together now."

FAIRFIELD, 87-82 at Fairfield Harvard34  48  --  82 Fairfield  35  52  --  87

HARVARD: Leake 1-2 2-2 4, Campbell 4-6 2-4 11, Rankin 2-4 1-2 6, Snowden 7-10 3-4 17, Scott 1-5 0-0 3, Gilmore 6-13 5-5 18, Mann 2-4 5-6 9, White 5-7 0-0 12, Fricka 0-2 0-0 0, Morris 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 29-54 18-24 82.

FAIRFIELD: Jones 2-4 3-4 7, Sytulek 3-9 6-6 13, Seymour 4-5 2-7 6, Bowman 7-12 8-8 22, Martin 8-13 0-0 4, Guarsci 0-3 0-0 0, Dunlap 3-5 1-1 7, Francis 3-5 2-3 9, English 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 30-56 22-29 87.