M. Basketball Destroys Ivy Foe Yale

An emotional Harvard team delivered its best performance of the year Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion, beating Yale 82-66 to pull into a three-way tie for second place in the Ivy League.

The Crimson won by its largest margin in an Ivy League contest since 2003 and biggest over Yale (9-14, 5-5 Ivy) in five years. Harvard (11-13, 6-5) was clearly ready to play against the team that beat the Crimson by one point in New Haven two weeks earlier.

“We go into every game with [Yale] with a passion to bring them down,” junior center Brian Cusworth said. “[This is] a very gratifying win for us.”

Leading 32-26 at intermission, the Crimson took control of the game to begin the second half. A 7-0 run—on a bank shot from junior center Brian Cusworth, a three from junior forward Matt Stehle, and a driving dunk by Cusworth—gave Harvard a 39-26 lead.

“It’s just a different type of game when we start going to the basket harder,” Cusworth said. “Fortunately, they weren’t able to stop us.”

Harvard extended its lead to 52-36 with 10:26 left on seven consecutive points from Cusworth. Yale was able to cut the deficit down to 10, but Harvard put the game out of reach by outscoring the Bulldogs 10-3 to take a 17-point lead, its largest of the game, with 4:23 remaining. Yale would not come closer than nine down the stretch.

“Our weak side defense was very poor,” Yale coach James Jones said. “We never rotated over when we needed to, and we gave them easy shots at the basket.”

In stark contrast to the last time the two teams matched up—when the Bulldogs scored the first 12 points of the game—Harvard looked sharp right from the opening tap.

The Crimson pulled out to a 21-11 lead midway through the period, and never trailed the rest of the way.

“The big difference tonight was that the starters came out with a lot of intensity,” sophomore guard Jim Goffredo said. “We got off to a great start.”

Cusworth led all players with 21 points, tying a career high, and 11 rebounds. He scored 15 in the second half, six of which came on three thunderous dunks that got the team going. The center also limited Yale counterpart Dominick Martin to just two points in 23 minutes.

“[Cusworth] had an excellent game, probably his best game of the season,” junior forward Matt Stehle said. “He was just dominating, and they had no answer for him whatsoever.”

Cusworth and the rest of the Harvard frontcourt had a field day against Yale down low. The Crimson outscored the Bulldogs in the paint 40-20, and Harvard outrebounded Yale 39-29.

“Especially in the second half, [Cusworth and Stehle] came out and just did what they wanted,” senior guard Kevin Rogus said. “It was great to see.”

Stehle added 15 points and nine rebounds for the Crimson, and Rogus shot 4-of-5 from downtown for 13 points.

“His threes were timely tonight,” Sullivan said. “He had the patience not to try to play outside of himself.”

Senior point guard David Giovacchini led all players with seven assists, his highest total of the Ivy season, while Stehle and Rogus each had four. The Crimson was able to find open players all night, shooting 49 percent from the floor and handing out 23 assists to only 11 turnovers.

“I’m reluctant to talk about [the assist to turnover ratio] because I don’t want to jinx the whole thing,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “It’s good to see the guys play better offensive basketball, and get each other good shots.”

Harvard appeared to draw energy from the contentious Bulldogs fans in attendance. Yale brought its cheerleaders, a raucous band and a substantial cheering section to Lavietes in the attempt to turn Cambridge into New Haven North.

“It kind of pisses us off that they’re trying to come down here and pretend like this is their home gym,” Cusworth said. “There’s no way that we were going to let them take over the atmosphere of the gym...We let our play prove that point.”

Yale was led by forward Caleb Holmes and guards Casey Hughes and Edwin Draughan, who all had 14 points. Hughes added 11 rebounds for the Bulldogs, and tried two alley-oop jams in the second half, connecting spectacularly on one.

Harvard kept the pressure on until the final buzzer, outscoring Yale 8-1 in the game’s final 45 seconds.

“[The players] wanted to finish the game with a little bit of distance if they could,” Sullivan said. “They really were geared to finish the game in a workmanlike fashion, and they did.”

—Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer can be reached at cpeiffer@fas.harvard.edu.