Men's Basketball Tops Princeton, 67-64, Sets Program Record for Wins

Yet another Harvard-Princeton basketball game came down to the wire on Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

But unlike in the last two meetings between the rivals, it was the Crimson (24-3, 10-1 Ivy) who emerged victorious, completing a late second-half rally to pull out a thrilling 67-64 win.

With the victory, Harvard avenged its loss earlier in the season to the Tigers (15-11, 6-4) and kept itself in control of its own destiny in the Ivy League race.

Junior forward Kyle Casey led the Crimson with 20 points and eight rebounds while classmate Brandyn Curry added 15 points and six assists in a game dominated by streaks.

“There was a little more to this win for us, a little something personal,” Casey said. “We had to throw everything into it tonight to pull it out. Princeton really came in and played well.... It was a really gutsy effort by everyone.”

Curry’s three from the right wing gave Harvard the lead at 57-55 with 6:54 to go, and after Doug Davis missed a chance to answer at the other end, a Curry jumper gave the Crimson a four-point advantage with five minutes left.

“I was just trying to be aggressive,” Curry said. “In the second half, [it is] crunch time, [and] as the quarterback of this team, I’ve just got to make plays.... Whatever the team asks me to do to win, I’m going to do it.”

Neither team scored for the following three minutes until a free throw by Princeton’s T.J. Bray cut the deficit to three. On the Tigers’ next possession, Davis missed a long ball, but Patrick Saunders grabbed the offensive rebound and found Davis, who drove and hit a runner off the backboard to make it 59-58 with 53 seconds to go.

On Harvard’s next possession, Casey used a pump fake to draw a foul and hit both free throws. Out of a timeout, Tigers forward Ian Hummer couldn’t finish over Casey, and co-captain Oliver McNally snagged the rebound and calmly hit his ensuing two foul shots to extend the lead to five.

Bray hit a desperation fall-back three with 10 seconds left, and Harvard again got it to McNally, its best free-throw shooter, off the inbounds. After being fouled, the senior sank both again, and Davis lost the ball sprinting up the court on Princeton’s next possession.

McNally then hit two more from the charity stripe to seal the dramatic win before a Davis heave at the buzzer went in to make it a 67-64 final.

“I thought we dug in,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said. “That’s something I’m incredibly pleased and proud of. We gave great energy and effort to come back.”

The Crimson started the game on a 7-0 run following a Casey jumper, a top-of-the key Casey three, and a Curry driving layup.

But Princeton responded and cut Harvard’s to 11-10 on a Davis long ball before Harvard scored five straight. Two Saunders threes knotted the game at 18, and from there Princeton went on a 15-5 run capped by a Hummer floater over two defenders to open up a 33-23 advantage with 3:59 to go in the first half.

But the Crimson would rally before the break, finishing on a 9-0 spurt of its own capped by a Curry left wing three and a McNally transition layup to make it 33-32 going into the half.

“I thought the way we closed the first half was as big as anything,” Amaker said. “It gave us momentum to stay in the game and scratch and claw in the second half.”

Early in the second, Princeton extended its lead to seven with a 6-0 run on jumpers by Davis, Brendan Connolly, and Hummer.

But the Crimson answered with six straight of its own on a Casey driving layup, a Laurent Rivard transition runner off a Curry steal, and a long Casey jumper to make it 39-38.

“It was a game we had to win, and when you have to win, people have to step up,” Casey said. “I was kind of feeling it, and my shots were falling tonight, so it was just my night.”

The Tigers pushed the lead back to six on a Denton Koon three and a Bray layup with 14:16 to go, and the Princeton lead grew to as large as seven at 50-43 moments later.

But from there, Steve Moundou-Missi and Curry hit driving layups—the latter an and-one—to cut it to two. Bray turned it over on the next Tiger possession, and Wright was fouled going up for a dunk at the other end as Lavietes reached its loudest point.

The co-captain hit both free throws to tie the game and then tipped in a Wes Saunders miss on the next Crimson possession to give Harvard back the lead—its first since midway through the opening half—at 52-50 with 9:29 left.

Princeton’s Mack Darrow, Wright, and Hummer traded baskets—Hummer’s an and-one—to give the Tigers a one-point advantage at 55-54 with 8:17 to go in the back-and-forth contest.

But the Crimson held Princeton scoreless for the following six minutes as Harvard retook the lead on Curry’s three.

“I didn’t think we played them very well defensively [last meeting] at Princeton,” Amaker said. “We were hoping we could redeem ourselves on the defensive end.”

The victory set a program record for wins in a season, with 24, and put the Crimson in position to clinch a share of the Ivy title for the second straight season if it can beat Penn at home tomorrow night.

“[The turnaround] is incredibly challenging, no doubt about it,” Amaker said. “[But] we’ll recover, and we’ll be ready.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.