Eight television sets blinked pink and orange light through the smoke of the Crimson Sports Grille as college students milled around and watched the last game of the NCAA championship.

But while their peers from such distant sites as Boston University and Tufts came to Cambridge to watch the game, Harvard students were notably absent from such public viewing spots.

Even the undergraduate house grilles were largely vacant as the University of Kentucky battled Syracuse University for the title.

"A lot of people were rooting for UMass," explained Arturo R. Galletti '97, who works at the Quincy House Grille.

He cited the University of Massachusetts' loss to Kentucky in the semi-final round as an explanation for the dearth of basketball fans in the house grille.

"The big game was the Kentucky-UMass game. After that was played, the championship was supposedly pretty much a letdown," said Jay M. Dickerson Jr. '98, a Kentucky native.

"At school, it wasn't that much of a deal except to those of us from Kentucky," Dickerson added. "I think if UMass would have been in it, it would have been a bigger deal. But since Kentucky beat UMass, only the die-hard Kentucky fans, I think, cared anything about the game."

Dickerson shared the optimism many had felt about his home state's chances.

"I was confident that they would pull it out in the end. They did everything they could not to win, but they would up winning anyway," he said. "This was probably one of their worst games they played all year, and they still won. That's how good they are."

Indeed, the Wildcats still managed to defeat the Syracuse Orangemen by a score of 76-67 (please see story, page 10).

Kentucky began the season ranked first in the Associated Press poll, were favored to win last night by a double-digit margin.

Kentucky, one of the most talent-laden teams in NCAA history, was also the consensus pick among the unofficial betting pools that were run on campus.

As one of only a handful of Kentuckians, though, Dickerson was left with little room to enjoy the victory.

"You really can't do anything up here, because there are so few Kentucky people," he said.

Nevertheless, the lack of state comradeship wasn't enough to muffle his pride when the final score appeared.

"Not that I know what it's like, but it was probably better than sex," he said. "It was a great experience. We'd been waiting 18 years for a championship.... It was nice to see that their practice and talent paid off."

Other natives of the Bluegrass State natives were much less enthusiastic.

"To me, it's probably less of a big deal than it is to a lot of people in Kentucky," said Stewart A. Ellis '98. "I imagine in Kentucky right now there are many happy people, but since I'm up here, it's sort of hard to be interested when everybody else is not interested."