"They had good team quickness and we were alittle out of synch," Beam said. "But we passedthe ball well, and our shooting was better."

In the second half, Sacred Heart stepped up itsaggressive, ball-denial style of defense thatforced 17 Harvard turnovers on the afternoon.

Additionally, the Pioneers instituted afull-court press for most of the half thatflustered the Crimson squad which struggled infacing pressure for the first time this season.

"We saw some things we haven't seen yet thisseason," Sullivan said. "We saw full-courtpressure and overplay in the halfcourt. We haven'treally worked on those, but we still had a levelof confidence."

The press forced 10 second-half turnovers bythe Crimson, and the Pioneers pulled to withineight points with 5:12 remaining at 60-52. But inthe next minute and a half, Hill had two assistsand a steal to put the Crimson up 12 and seal thewin.

"They had some streaky players, which is alwaysdangerous," Hill said. "But we contained theirruns and never felt threatened."

Hill put together another fine night in what isfast becoming another superb season. He was secondon the team with 19 points, and tallied fiveassists to go with two steals. Hill had only oneturnover in 40 minutes of action despite theaggressive Pioneer defense.

"Tim handled [defensive pressure] well," Beamsaid. "He's a human pressbreaker."

For the second consecutive game, Fisher cameout strong in the first half, made all three ofhis first-half field-goal attempts for eightpoints, but then cooled off after halftime. Thesenior connected on only 1-of-5 second-halfefforts to finish with 10 points.

This may be an indication that opposing teamsare increasingly clamping down on Harvard's mostpotent offensive threat in the post, or perhapsmerely that Fisher became fatigued by being on thecourt all 20 minutes in the second half.

"We maxed out Fisher's minutes in the secondhalf because of [Ewing's] foul trouble," Sullivansaid. "When he gets rest he's a lot fresher. Weprobably can't expect him to do the whole thingfrom beginning to end."

Another important factor in Saturday's game wasrebounding. In addition to Ewing's eight,sophomore forward Tim Coleman raked in sevenboards to limit the cold-shooting Pioneers to oneattempt each time down the floor. Harvard earnedthe rebounding edge 35-33.

"Rebounding is certainly something we've talkedabout considerably this season," Sullivan said.

Freshman guard Andrew Gellert, who has seenaction in every game this season, made substantialand necessary contributions off the bench.

A deep Harvard squad became suddenlyshorthanded when Clemente went down and Ewing gotin foul trouble throughout the second half.