AT COURTSIDE: Campbell comes up short

BOSTON -- At 5-foot-10, he doesn't look like an intimidating athlete, and especially not a basketball player. No one throughout the Ivy League mentions his name in the same breath as Jerome Allen or Matt Maloney. While those two both were on the all-Ivy first team last season, he didn't even receive honorable mention honors. And if the ball weren't always in Harvard guard Tarik Campbell's hands, no one would even notice him on the court. But when the Crimson hosted the Penn men's basketball team Saturday, everyone in the Briggs Athletic Center had their eyes trained on the smallest man on the court. "He was very quick," Penn sophomore forward Tim Krug said of Campbell. "He was able to get past Matt [Maloney] and Jerome [Allen] a lot of times, and that is just not easy to do. I give him a lot of credit, he played well." Throughout the contest, which was a rematch of Penn's 17-point blowout in the Palestra in the beginning of the year, Campbell consistently took it upon himself to keep the Crimson in the game. In the first half, when it appeared as if the Quakers were pulling away with a 7-2 run, it was Campbell who brought the Crimson back into striking range. First he stripped Krug of the ball in the backcourt and put it in the basket on a reverse layup. On the very next possession, he penetrated the lane and banked the ball high off the glass over the outstretched arms of senior 6-8 center Andy Baratta to get Harvard back within three. And Campbell's offensive heroics continued after the intermission. Once again, when it appeared as if the Quakers were poised to finally put the Crimson away, Campbell, all 5-10 of him, crashed the offensive boards. When Harvard's tallest player, junior center Kevin Fricka, missed his shot, the shortest player tipped the ball in the basket. On the very next possession, Campbell missed a scoop shot. But he got his own rebound and scored another basket to quickly cut the Penn lead back down to three. This trend of ending Quaker runs and keeping the Crimson close occurred again and again as the senior captain provided Harvard with clutch shots throughout the contest. So it was no surprise in the final seconds it was Campbell who had the ball. Every fan, every player and every coach will always remember the final play of the game. After the Quakers put the ball in their go-to man's hands and Allen was stopped, the Crimson tried the same philosophy. Campbell brought the ball down the court as the clock wound down to single digits. He used a pick to squirt into the lane, which he seemed to be able to do almost at will throughout the contest. As Maloney got caught by the pick, the lanky Krug tried to stay with the quickest man on the court. And although Campbell was giving away 11 inches in height and seemingly another foot in arm length, he took the last shot of the game with his team down by only one. "He's really quick," Penn senior forward Barry Pierce said. "He doesn't shoot well, but he likes to get in the lane and throw up herky-jerky shots." And that was exactly what Campbell did as time wound down, even though he was faced with a much taller Krug in his face. "I just tried to keep him in front of me as best I could," Krug said. "I know how quick he is. He got in the lane, but I just kept myself between him and the basket." But as the two players collided, Krug blocked the shot and the siren echoed throughout the third-oldest gym in Division I. And for the first time in the 40-minute contest, Campbell's size worked against him.