Each year, the men's basketball teams of Princeton and Penn swing through Cambridge to take on Harvard. Almost as regularly, the visitors win.

Over the past two seasons, the Crimson has come excruciatingly close to knocking off one of these two titans. A year ago, Harvard watched the Quakers block its last shot as heavily favored Penn won, 66-65.

This season, Princeton was the team to break Harvard's heart, squeaking by the home team in double-overtime by the score of 73-69 on Saturday night at Briggs Cage.

Meanwhile, the Quakers romped over the Crimson on Friday night, 90-63, easily keeping their place in the Top 25.

But the Princeton loss is the one that really gnaws at Harvard. Like so many other games, it was one that the Crimson should have won but didn't.

One gets the feeling that if Harvard played the Dream Team, the Crimson would be fated to lose on a last-second shot.

"In each of the overtimes, I kept telling our guys that we were going to win," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said. "We had a number of opportunities, but just couldn't convert."

At the end of regulation, sophomore Chris Grancio had a chance to win with a shot from the top of the key, but could not hit it. Then, at the end of the first overtime, fellow sophomore Kyle Snowden was unable to convert on a bank shot close to the basket with hordes of Tigers around him. And it was Grancio again at the end of the second overtime, missing a three-pointer in the waning seconds that would have given Harvard the lead.

"This is the best we've played since Coach [Sullivan] has been here," Grancio said. "But a couple bad bounces didn't go our way."

The Crimson led for much of the first half, though it was perhaps the ugliest half of collegiate basketball in the modern era. Both squads seemed to be in a competition to see who could turn it over the most, with Harvard "winning" by a 14-12 margin.

At the 13:54 mark, the Crimson was up 13-6. The Tigers then would proceed to go on a 9-0 run--but it took them 5:16 to do so. That's right, Harvard didn't score for over five minutes and still only found themselves down by two.

Of course, credit must be given to the Crimson defense, who kept Princeton in check. The Tigers would often be forced to take harried shots as the 35 second shot clock was winding down.

"Harvard played us pretty tight," Princeton Coach Pete Carril said. "Other teams have played us loose, and it [surprised us]."

After the Tigers grabbed the 15-13 lead, the Crimson took it right back with a James White three-pointer. Harvard would never trail for the rest of the half, as its offense began to pick up the slack and built a 27-23 lead at the break.

In the second half, Harvard got into serious foul trouble, which really kept Princeton in the game. It only took the Crimson 5:26 to get its seventh foul and be in the penalty, and the Tigers did well to capitalize, making 79.3 percent of their free throws.