Rather than risk its Division I status and a possible NCAA sanction, the Harvard men's basketball team has cancelled two games scheduled for later this season.

The Crimson last week scratched showdowns with Division III squads Brandeis and New York University after it learned it would lose both its Division I membership and post-season eligibility next season if it played either the Judges or the Violets, Harvard Director of Athletics John P. Reardon Jr. '60 said yesterday.

The move came just days after the NCAA denied Harvard an exemption from a controversial rule that forbids Division I teams to play or scrimmage more than four non-Division I schools in one season.

Having already participated in one scrimmage and three games against non-Division I opponents, Harvard has met the limit set by the national governing board of collegiate atheltics.

Games against either Brandeis or NYU would have put Harvard in violation of NCAA bylaw Ll:le, which states that "any [basketball] team wishing to remain a member of Division I cannot play more than tour games against teams outside Division I."

So when Reardon recently learned of the problem from officials at Brown, which is currently in violation of the same rule, he immediately asked for an exemption.

Reardon cited the bylaw's ambiguity as his chief reason. "The rule reads 'no more than four games," said the Harvard director of athletics, adding that it fails to mention anything about scrimmages.

"When the thing was voted, if should have been clear that they meant scrimmages, too." Reardon said of the two-year old rule."

Harvard Coach Frank McLaughlin said that "there's no way we would have scrimmaged UMass-Boston if we knew it was going to count."

The NCAA will reportedly change the wording to "games and scrimmages" soon, said Reardon, who alleges that many schools are breaking the rule but that nobody knows it because scrimmages aren't publicized.

Nevertheless, even if it hadn't scrimmaged UMass-Boston, Harvard still would have needed to cancel one of its games against either Brandeis or NYU to meet the limit of four non-Division I games.

Reardon said the scheduling mixup occurred because both he and McLaughlin had still been working under the former "75 percent rule" that predated the new bylaw and which required only three-quarters of a Division I school's opponents to be from within the division.

If that rule were still in effect. Harvard could have scrimmaged UMass-Boston and played all five non-Division I schools that were originally on the schedule.

McLaughlin said the entire fiasco would never have occurred if Army--a Division I team--had lived up to its verbal agreement to play Harvard this year.

But when the Cadets backed out in August, it left a hole in the Harvard schedule and a lack of replacements to chose from.