"It sounds like the setup of a bad joke: Have you heard the one about the Harvard kid who can't catch a break in the job market, keeps getting passed over in favor of other applicants with more impressive resumes and pink-slipped by bosses who don't believe he can hack it?

It's funny, Knicks point-guard sensation Jeremy Lin is far from the first Harvard graduate to make it big in New York City. But he's the only one wearing baggy shorts to work in a Midtown office that seats about 19,000.

Now, with each shutter-quick drive and acrobatic finish at the rim, Lin is shattering the image of methodical Ivy League hoops that seems plucked from the era when Bill Bradley took his game from Princeton to Broadway. With each NBA test he aces, with each heroic effort at the Garden or captivation of a road crowd like last night's at the Verizon Center, Lin is proving some Ivy players known for their A grades have A-games to match."