Everyone said that they were in big trouble.

Only a day before its trip to Cornell and Columbia last weekend, lightning struck the Harvard men's basketball team. Its freshman star, Kyle Snowden, sustained an ankle sprain in practice and would be forced to miss both games.

The Crimson had no chance for any wins, the cynics said. Without the team' leading rebounder, the games would look like first-graders playing the Globetrotters.

But the cynics didn't count on Chris Grancio.

The freshman forward's season had previously been an injury-filled nightmare. A hip pointer incurred over the summer kept him off the court for months. As soon as he recovered from that, he began to experience ankle problems.

Before last weekend, Grancio had never played more than three minutes in one game.

"It got to a point that it was tough to go down to the gym and put on a T-shirt and watch everyone play," Grancio said.

But the ankle healed, and Grancio caught up on all the practice time that he had missed.

"He's had a difficult year," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said. "For any freshman to be out that long him back a while."

Slowly, Grancio came back. First he did half practices. Then, At about the start of the Ivy League schedule, he completed full practices. Soon, he was ready to play.

And then Snowden got injured.

"It's unfortunate for Kyle," Grancio said. "We've been friends all year. Hopefully when Kyle gets back we can play some together.

"I told him that that's the way I've been felling all year," Grancio said jokingly.

"Right now we're just trying to get to the point where we're both playing at the same time," Snowden said.

So with Snowden on crutches, the Crimson packed up and headed off to Cornell.