The Harvard men's basketball team hopes to rebound from last weekend's losses to Penn and Princeton with road games in New York against Cornell (13-7, 5-3 Ivy) tonight and Columbia (6-14, 1-7) tomorrow.

Cornell and Columbia pose big outside threats, so facing two perimeter-oriented opponents, Harvard (12-8, 5-3) hopes to play tough defense against their three-point shooters.

"Cornell is an excellent three-point shooting team," sophomore Tim Hill said. "Columbia is the same way. Cornell has good inside players as well."

One such player, senior John McCord, presents an additional problem. McCord was injured in the first matchup between the two teams but scored 18 points in 22 minutes.

"We dodged a bullet a little with regard to his presence," coach Frank Sullivan said. "McCord is one of the top big men in the league."

The forward is second to Harvard senior Kyle Snowden in league rebounding. Because of his limited playing time when the teams first met, McCord had only four rebounds.

McCord and three-point specialist Alex Compton provide a strong, experienced inside-out combination for Cornell. Compton is currently shooting 49 percent from behind the line.

However, Harvard limited Compton to making one of four three-pointers in their first outing and only five points total.

"We defended well against him," Snowden said. "We took away a lot of his three-point looks," Snowden said.

The Big Red also boasts one of the league's top shot-blockers in Jeff Autry.

"He's put on weight, added muscle, and is playing real well right now," Hill said.

Harvard will need a repeat of its quality performance against Compton tonight, but the team must also rotate from the weak side to prevent McCord from receiving lob passes.

"If we don't prevent [the lobs down low], he gets the easy layup," Hill said. "He got too many easy baskets when he played at our place."

When the Crimson travels to Columbia tomorrow, it will face the league's leading scorer in C.J. Thompkins. At 43 percent from beyond the arc, Thompkins is comparable to Compton.

"Thompkins is unquestionably one of the best perimeter players in the league," Sullivan said.