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Colgate Brushes by M. Basketball

The Harvard men's basketball team had insult added to injury on Saturday afternoon as it was brushed away by Colgate in its worst loss of the season.

Playing its first game of the year without star junior forward and leading scorer Dan Clemente--who is out for the season with a detached retina in his right eye--the Crimson (3-4) could muster no consistency on offense, falling to the Red Raiders (3-5) 76-49 at Lavietes Pavilion.

It was the fourth consecutive defeat for Harvard and the end of Colgate's four-game losing streak.

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"It was a difficult game for our guys to go through the news of losing the seventh-leading scorer in the country [entering the last game Clemente played] and playing a game in the same 24 hours," Coach Frank Sullivan said.

Clemente--who was averaging 21.2 points per game and 4.7 rebounds per game on the season--had recently been experiencing blurred vision in his right eye. On Thursday afternoon the injury was diagnosed, and surgery was performed on Friday morning.

With no previous indications and the suddenness of the news, Harvard entered the contest in disarray and seemingly unprepared to handle a game without its star.

'We definitely weren't prepared to play [without Clemente]," captain Damian Long said. "We didn't know what the new role of the players would be. We just played hard and hoped things worked out."

But despite the loss of its star, Harvard was quick to give credit to the Red Raiders.

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