After almost nine months of sitting around and waiting, I finally returned to my true sports home: the end of the press table at Lavietes Pavilion. Sure, I had distracted myself by watching some football and hockey this season, but save the actual players and coaches themselves, perhaps no one was as eager as I was for the Harvard men's basketball season to begin.

Last night was a chance for me to get some first impressions of the team that is predicted to finish third in the Ivy League.

It wasn't that pretty. Harvard's 60-55 loss to an inferior Holy Cross team left me hoping that the Crimson has suffered a severe case of first-game jitters.

"We played like it was a first game--the first-game jitters, the nervousness," Coach Frank Sullivan said. "Holy Cross played like a team that had a game under its belt."

Truth be told, neither team looked particularly impressive last night. When both teams shoot below 33 percent in the second half, when both have assist-to-turnover ratios of less than one and when nobody reels off a big scoring run, there has to be room for lots of improvement.

The first thing Harvard should take away from this game is that size truly matters. Even last season, the Crimson's only true center was Tim Coleman, and currently Coleman is vacationing in the land of the academically ineligible. Instead, Harvard has decided to go with a small, guard-focused offense, and has left the inside to forward Dan Clemente and an unproven pair of 6'10 sophomores, Onnie Mayshak and Brian Sigafoos.

Against Holy Cross, the size factor was decidedly against Harvard. The Crusaders gave heavy playing time to seven-foot center Josh Sankes and 6'8, 220-pound sophomore Tim Szatko. Both players had double-doubles, and Sankes only played 22 minutes. Sankes continuously frustrated Crimson defenders, pounding his way for six offensive rebounds and two paint-clearing dunks.

More importantly, the Crimson offense could not work inside. Clemente stuck to the outside, because his inside post plays tended to lead to nothing but missed shots and turnovers. Even guard Pat Harvey, who had a good defensive day, suffered by matching up against the larger Jared Curry, who limited him to nine points, four turnovers and no assists.