Men's Basketball Upsets Cal, 67-62

BERKELEY, Calif.—After fighting back throughout the second half, Cal finally took its first lead of the period with 1:50 remaining in the contest.

At that point, few would have been surprised if the Harvard men’s basketball team had folded—after all, the Crimson’s young squad was facing a Pac-12 opponent in its home arena 3,000 miles away from Cambridge.

But staring at its first deficit in more than 35 minutes, Harvard responded.

The Crimson (7-4) closed the contest on a 6-0 run and came away with a 67-62 victory over the favored Bears (8-4) on Saturday night at Haas Pavilion.

“What a sensational win for our program,” said Crimson coach Tommy Amaker, whose squad has now won three straight contests for the first time this season. “I thought our kids did a magnificent job of showing a great deal of poise and composure.”

After the Bears took the 62-61 lead off a David Kravish layup, the Crimson swung the ball to sophomore wing Wesley Saunders on the perimeter with the shot clock expiring. Saunders put the ball on the deck, and, with one tick left on the shot clock, drew a foul at the basket.

The sophomore drilled both free throws—his 17th and 18th points of the night—to put the Crimson up one with 1:13 to go.

Coming out of a timeout, Cal looked to inbound the ball to guard Justin Cobbs on the left sideline. But the junior was whistled for an offensive foul for pushing off rookie point guard Siyani Chambers, returning possession to the Crimson with 56 seconds remaining.

“He’s smarter than I am, and he used that to his advantage,” Cobbs said of Chambers. “He was able to flop a few times.”

On the other end, the Crimson milked the clock until Chambers—who struggled shooting the ball all night—let fly a three-pointer fly with 25 seconds left. The attempt was off its mark, but sophomore forward Jonah Travis pulled down the rebound.

With the shot clock turned off, the Bears sent Chambers to the stripe, where the rookie extended Harvard’s lead to three with 17 seconds remaining.

Coming out of another timeout, Cobbs dribbled up the court but lost the ball out of bounds—his fifth turnover of the contest. Junior co-captain Laurent Rivard proceeded to ice the game with two free throws.

“In a situation like this three things are important: concentration, composure, and confidence,” Amaker said. “I thought all three of those words could be used to describe the boys this evening.”

In addition to their critical free throws down the stretch, the trio of Saunders, Chambers, and Rivard carried the Crimson offensively throughout the contest, accounting for 44 of the Crimson’s 67 points and 11 of its 13 assists.

Rivard finished with a season-high 19 points after hitting 5-of-12 attempts from beyond the arc. Chambers also set a new mark for himself, dishing out nine assists.

Despite being held scoreless for the first 15 minute of play, Saunders tallied 18 points—13 of which came in the second period.

Saunders' offensive production came in spite of the fact that he was tasked with defending the Pac-12’s leading scorer, 6’6” guard Allen Crabbe, who entered the contest averaging 20.4 points per game. In 40 minutes, Crabbe put up 27 points on 10-of-18 shooting.

“[Saunders’] assignment was to the best he could on Crabbe,” Amaker said. “We told him we weren’t going to be concerned with the offensive production, but we needed to see the defensive efficiency and concentration on that end, and I thought he set the tone for us there.”

Even with his focus on the defensive end, Saunders managed to come up with a number of critical baskets for the Crimson.

After the Bears knotted the game at 46 with 9:49 to go, Saunders poured in seven points in just 80 seconds.

After scoring back-to-back baskets in the paint, Saunders—who entered the contest with just eight three-point attempts in 10 contests—capped off the run with a three-pointer from the right wing that put the Crimson up five, 53-48, with 8:12 remaining.

“That one was going up regardless,” Saunders said of the three-point attempt. “Luckily I knocked it down.”

Following four straight points from Crabbe the Bears managed to even the score at 58 with 4:33 to go, but the Crimson once again responded to the threat. This time Rivard came up big, drilling a corner three off a bounce from Chambers with the shot clock expiring.

The Bears made one last push, as Crabbe hit two free throws and Kravish finished a layup on two-straight possessions to give Cal its first advantage since scoring the contest’s opening basket.

“This was a great team win,” Saunders said. “Hopefully it can propel our team to the next level."

—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.