They say if you're not moving forward, you're falling behind.

The men's basketball team finds itself in just such a predicament this weekend. The team was the clear number two in the Ivy League three weeks ago when it broke for exam period, but without losing a game in the intervening weeks, it finds itself tied for second with two other teams in the muddled middle of the Ivy league race.

This weekend Harvard (9-6, 3-1 Ivy) takes on Brown (3-13, 0-4) and second-place Yale (8-8, 3-1) in an effort to re-establish sole possession of the second-place position that the team feels it has earned.

"We're really excited to start the second half of our Ivy season," junior forward Paul Fisher said. "We're taking every game dead serious."

Coming off a dismal first half in a non-conference loss to Hartford on Tuesday, the team also hopes that the rust from the exam-period layoff is out of its system and that the team will be able to play an entire 40 minutes of solid basketball.

"Hopefully, we got to playing the kind of basketball we want to play [in the second half against Hartford]," junior guard Mike Beam said.

The Crimson will get to ease into the challenge of back-to-back Ivy contests, as tonight's game is in Providence against the hapless Brown Bears, who have exactly one win in their 13 starts since Thanksgiving.

Still looking for their first league win, the Bears are reeling from four straight Ivy defeats against quality opponents, including the most recent, back-to-back losses to traveling partner Yale.

In its string of losses, Brown has been woefully unable to put points of the board. The team averages a meager 54 points-per-game, and has yet to record a 20-point effort by any player.

If no one player is singeing the twine for Brown this season, they have been getting production from a wide variety of sources, which is both a blessing and a curse.

"It's tough to defend because we can't focus on any one player," Beam said.

The Bear's apparent depth may also signal a lack of cohesiveness.

"Their depth may actually be beneficial for us," Fisher said. "They're struggling...to discover their roles on the court, whereas our roles are generally well defined."

The team is as deep as a coach could possibly hope for, having had eight different players lead the team in scoring this season, and five different players in rebounding.

As a result, Harvard's bench may be tested. Junior guard Mike Beam is still recovering from a flu virus that kept him out of exam-break practices and forced him into only limited action in Tuesday's loss. If Beam is still less than 100 percent, coach Frank Sullivan may be forced to go early and often to a bench that he has been reluctant to use in tight situations this season.