Harvard Engineers Win Over Cambridge Foe

The Battle of the ‘Bridge was fought for just the 11th time this afternoon as Cambridge’s two elite academic institutions stepped outside the classroom and duked it out on the hardwood for the first time since the 1985-86 season.

MIT (11-1)—a Division III opponent that entered with an undefeated record—marched down Mass. Ave. and across the Charles River to Lavietes Pavilion, where the Harvard men’s basketball team (8-3) defended its home court with an 88-61 victory.

While six three-pointers kept the Engineers behind by just single digits at the half, the Crimson pulled away after the break and cruised to the 27-point victory.

“I think we definitely played down a little to the competition,” said senior forward Pat Magnarelli, who finished with a season-high 16 points. “They’re a good team but a Division III school. [It] probably should have been more than [a 27-point game].”

Magnarelli finished with an efficient 7-of-9 shooting performance from the field, scoring all of his baskets around the hoop. As a team, the Crimson concentrated its offense in the paint, outscoring its opponents, 54-18, inside the rectangle.

After three road contests against bigger teams with superior athleticism, Harvard was finally able to bully its opponent down low, finishing with a rebounding advantage of 45-31 and scoring 22 second-chance points.

“I think we rebounded the ball pretty well,” Magnarelli said. “They had some big guys down low, so it’s not like we were overpowering them. Everyone was rebounding pretty well—guards and post.”

The Crimson bigs were also able to hold MIT’s best offensive player, Noel Hollingswoth, to just 12 points. Hollingsworth, a sophomore transfer from Brown, entered this afternoon’s contest having scored 34 points in the Engineers’ previous matchup. But by pressuring MIT’s guards, Harvard was able to limit Hollingsworth’s touches.

But despite the double-digit victory and strong defensive performance, Harvard coach Tommy Amaker felt the Crimson looked sloppy at times. Harvard turned the ball over 14 times throughout the contest and led by just nine at the half.

MIT jumped out to an early 6-0 lead off two three-pointers from Mitchell Kates and Will Tashman. The Engineers held onto the lead for the game’s first four minutes until the Crimson’s first wave of substitutions checked in.

Magnarelli knotted the score at eight with a free throw. MIT went up by two with a lay-up on the following possession, but Magnarelli tied the game again with a basket under the hoop off a feed from freshman point guard Brandyn Curry.

Harvard would take the lead moments later after co-captain Jeremy Lin pulled down an offensive rebound and then flipped it to freshmen Dee Giger for the easy lay-in and the 14-12 advantage.

While the Crimson’s lead would grow to 15 after co-captain Doug Miller threw down one of his two dunks with just over four minutes remaining, a barrage of three-pointers from the Engineers closed the gap to nine by the end of the period.

“We know that we’re going to give up some of those kinds of shots given the way that we wanted to play them,” Amaker said. “We tried to pressure and force them into speeding the game up a little bit, and when you do that you end up scrambling some, and they knocked some in.”

But Harvard’s pressure defense did not let up in the second half, and when the three pointers stopped falling for the Engineers, things began to get ugly fast for MIT.

The Engineers came out hot to start the second half, as Billy Bender knocked down a long ball from the corner to cut the Crimson’s lead to six. Lin countered with a full-court layup and then forced a steal moments later. The star guard raced up the court and found sophomore Oliver McNally as he streaked to the basket for the easy layup, extending the lead to 13.

The Engineers were only able to knock down two more trifectas for the rest of the game, and their deficit grew to 20 midway through the period.

“We felt like if we kept playing our pressure defense, we thought that maybe we could wear them down—and I thought that certainly is what happened in the second half,” Amaker said.

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