It is said that good teams finish strong.

For the Harvard men's basketball team, it was such a 3-0 homestretch--including a historic 87-79 overtime win against vaunted Princeton before a sellout crowd in Lavietes Pavilion--that put this year's team and its senior class on the map of Harvard hoops history.

A season that began with senior shooting guard Mike Beam's 30-footer in overtime to lift the Crimson (13-13, 7-7 Ivy) over Boston College will clearly be remembered for its penultimate weekend.

After stretching Ivy League champion Penn to the wire in a 81-76 setback at Lavietes Pavilion, Harvard returned to its home court and broke a 17-game winless streak against last year's league champion, Princeton.

After dusting Brown and Yale on consecutive nights the following weekend, Harvard secured one of its main goals for the season--the school's record for wins over a four-year period -with 58.

"[In the record-setting game against Brown] it was amazing how focused everyone was," said sophomore forward Dan Clemente. "We knew we wanted to go out and get the record, and it's great for the seniors that we did."

The team also posted its fourth consecutive season at or above .500, a feat not seen at Harvard since 1928, making this year's senior class--Beam, point guard Tim Hill, captain center Paul Fisher, center Bill Ewing, and forward Chris Dexter--the winningest in school history.

In winning its final three league contests, the Crimson rose to fourth in the Ivy League at 7-7, finishing in the top half of the league for the fourth straight year.

For the first time in 10 years, the Crimson sent the Tigers back to their den behind a monster night from Hill, who will play professionally for Gunco Rotterdam in the Netherlands next year after finishing one of the greatest careers ever in a Crimson jersey.

Hill's 27 points, five boards and four assists are proof enough. He also played the entire 45 minutes of the overtime contest and led an especially effective defensive effort that held Princeton under 40-percent shooting on the evening.

Hill earned first-team All-Ivy League status, averaging 16.0 points per game on the season. He finished his collegiate career with a school-record 590 assists, and led the league with 6.6 assists per game in his final campaign. Harvard's seventh all-time leading scorer, he is the first Crimson player ever to tally 1,000 points and 500 assists in a career.

The Crimson led much of the way against Princeton, as Clemente showed a shooting touch to complement Hill's heroics. Harvard led 35-29 at the half, and threatened to blow Princeton out of the water before Princeton's freshman center Chris Young got in the act and put Harvard's big men, Ewing and Clemente, in foul trouble.

Princeton closed the gap, but Beam finally got on track after struggling much of the night, scoring all 11 of his points in the game's final 12 minutes as the Crimson held on and out-shot the Tigers in overtime as the Lavietes crowd went wild.

"Without a doubt it's the best win of my career," Hill said. "This was the only team we hadn't beaten in my four years; we couldn't have asked for a better night."

An experienced and senior-laden team, Harvard opened the season on a high note with wins over Boston College and Holy Cross.