For one second, the possibility existed that the Penn-Princeton hegemony in Ivy League men's basketball would be cracked.

For one second, the Harvard Crimson was on the verge of sweeping the dominant duo in one weekend, a feat that had not been achieved by any other Ivy team in 136 straight attempts over twelve years.

For one second, the 2000-plus Harvard fans that packed Lavietes Pavilion on Saturday were waiting to explode, to cheer for their Crimson and its leader, captain Dan Clemente, who had vanquished Penn with 29 points the night before and who had hit what appeared to be the game-winning shot over Princeton just seconds earlier.

And for one second, with the score at 67-66, Ivy League fans in seven states held their collective breath as they waited to see whether or not Harvard could disrupt the Ivy basketball oligarchy that has rested on the 45-mile stretch of I-95 between Princeton, N.J. and Philadelphia for the last half-century.

In that one second, the most incredible game of the 2000-01 Ivy season came down to Princeton forward Kyle Wente's desperate 25-foot, off-balance, one-handed shot. Wente had been stuck with the ball on the perimeter, covered by Crimson guards Pat Harvey and Drew Gellert, and had no other option than to heave up a shot from his hip.

The buzzer rang, and a split-second later the unmistakable sound of swish signified that Wente's Hail

Mary had indeed gone in. Wente's teammates mobbed him as a stunned and dejected Harvard crowd could do nothing but turn to the exits, crushed by the 69-67 loss.

Harvard coach Frank Sullivan later called Wente's shot "a dramatic ending to a tremendous basketball game." Both teams had shot over 50 percent from the field, made minimal turnovers and played excellent defense. Harvard was playing its best basketball in two years, while the Tigers had just suffered a traumatic one-point loss to Dartmouth the previous night. Both squads left their hearts out on the court, but only one got theirs back.