One of the most promising seasons for the Harvard men's basketball team got off to an ominous start last night.

It only took one game for an opponent to expose the Crimson's biggest weakness: lack of size.

Holy Cross (1-1) used a strong inside presence to hand the Crimson (0-1) its first opening game loss in eight years last night, winning 60-55 at Lavietes Pavillion.

The Crusaders were led by two of their three biggest players, seven-foot, 275-pound center Josh Sankes and 6'8 forward Tim Szatko. Despite missing almost the entire first half with foul trouble, Sankes scored 14 points and gathered 10 rebounds in just 22 minutes. Szatko came off the bench to lead all scorers with 23 points and 10 boards.

"Anytime you've got two front-court players getting double-doubles against you, it hurts," said Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan.

Shut out of the paint, Harvard was forced to rely on its outside shooting, but unfortunately, the shots just wouldn't fall.

Star captain Dan Clemente struggled shooting throughout the game. Despite leading the team with 14 points, the forward only made 5-of-15 shots and missed 7-of-9 three-pointers. Clemente was unable to create easy shots and mostly settled for quick outside jumpers.

In spite of his poor shooting performance, Clemente did become only the 25th Harvard player to score one thousand points in his career with a first half.