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.

It finally came down to the end of regulation, with the score knotted at 63-all. Senior point James White waited until the clock wound down to six, and then drove into the lane. Grancio rotated to the top of the key and had an open shot, but missed it.

"[Grancio] is a very good and talented three-point shooter," Sullivan said, "and he was one of the options on the play."

Everything went well, except the ball didn't go in.

The overtime sessions were a lesson in futility. In the first period, each team could only muster two points in five minutes, and Snowden could not hit the last-second shot from under the basket--one of only two misses for him out of nine shots.

In the second overtime, the Crimson's Achilles heel was its free throw shooting. Harvard went to the line eight times, and only hit two of the shots. That won't win you many games.

Yet again, Harvard had the ball with the clock winding down, but this time it came with the Crimson down by two. Princeton put heavy pressure on the ball, and the only shot that Harvard could muster was a Grancio three-pointer that he didn't have a good look to the basket on.

It missed, and Princeton got the rebound, essentially ending the game.

Earth-Quakers

The Penn game was not nearly as exciting, except for the fact that everyone in Briggs cage on Friday night had the chance to be on SportsChannel.

Harvard gave the Quakers no mighty scare like it did in last year's 66-65 Penn win. Harvard took an early 3-0 lead on one of junior Mike Gilmore's five three-pointers, but watched Penn blitz out to a 22-7 lead by the midway point of the first half.

The Crimson, to its credit, held down the fort for the rest of the first half and actually got the lead down to nine at one point before going to the locker rooms down by 11. When the second half started, Penn was yet again on the warpath.

"We could have easily gone into the half down by 15," Gilmore said. "But we didn't, and the halftime did take a little momentum out of us."

The result was not pretty.

It took less than five minutes for Penn to extend its lead to 54-36, and Harvard never got within shouting distance of the Quakers again.

"When you get on a roll early on, it's tough to come back," Penn guard Matt Maloney said, showing some modesty.

Penn is simply a good team, no two ways about it. At the moment it unquestionably belongs in the top 25.

"What we saw was a model of how much better they are," Sullivan said. "They're just terrific--they're playing at a different level than the rest of us." Penn  90 Harvard  63 Princeton  73 Harvard  69