Chambers, Men's Basketball Squeeze Past Columbia in Final Seconds

It was a tale of two halves for the Harvard men’s basketball team (16-5, 6-1 Ivy) Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion. After jumping out to a 19-point lead, the hosts frittered away the advantage. After continuously cutting into the deficit, Columbia (11-10, 3-4) finally drew even on a Jeff Coby three with eight seconds to go.

Then it was Siyani Chambers’s time.

As the Lions bench erupted in cheers, the junior co-captain was already in motion. Gathering the ball, he flew down the court, shaking a defender with a crossover and canning a jumper with 2.9 seconds remaining to give the Crimson a two-point lead.

Timeout Columbia. Game in hand.

Although two late free throws from senior wing Wesley Saunders provided the final 72-68 margin, the shot by Chambers was—once again—the clincher. Afterwards, Harvard coach Tommy Amaker and senior forward Jonah Travis noted that at the end of the game, the team wants the ball in the hands of its floor general.

“He’s made plays like that all the time,” Saunders said. “That’s what he does. I trust him with the ball late in games sometimes more than myself.”

Friday was not the first time that the backcourt of Chambers and Saunders bailed out the Crimson. Chambers hit a buzzer-beater against Boston University his freshman year, following it up with several clutch shots down the stretch against New Mexico in the NCAA tournament. Saunders—who hit the clinching shot against UMass in November—had a layup to force overtime and avoid a loss last week against Brown.

The two were at their best Friday, combining for 34 points, nine assists, three steals, and just two turnovers. They made six of 10 threes, spacing the floor for co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi and Travis (26 combined points) inside. With two starters—junior Agunwa Okolie and sophomore Zena Edosomwan—combining for just six points, the backcourt carried the offensive load all night.

“These are the two guys we want with the ball,” Travis said. “I don’t care if they are 0-for-20 for the entire game. We are getting them the ball when the clock runs down and [setting] them up for a great play. More often than not, they make the right plays, and we get the result we did tonight.”

The backcourt was the catalyst in the first half, as Harvard ran out to a 17-point halftime advantage. Flying around the floor, the Crimson had 48 points in 20 minutes after managing just 52 in the entire game in its last outing—a road victory over Yale. Saunders hit all three of his three-point attempts as Harvard rained down seven threes—equaling its total from last weekend’s pair of games in a single half.

The Lions bounced off the mat quickly in the second half, beginning the period on a 14-1 run reminiscent of the 26-2 streak Dartmouth used to take down the Crimson three weeks prior.

“We felt good about the first half,” Saunders said. “Second half, four minutes in, it just felt like we’d been here before. You could feel the energy swinging in their direction.”

But with the game in the balance, Harvard’s seniors stepped up. Saunders had assists on consecutive positions before picking the pocket of star Columbia guard Maodo Lo on the next. Travis had two free throws to push the lead back to eight, giving the Crimson ample breathing room.

The Lions kept coming behind the play of Lo. Playing an inverted offense, Columbia posted Chambers on each possession it could, using the larger Issac Cohen to run the offense from the paint. Clutch threes from the Lions (who shot 50 percent from deep on the game) kept any lead from ballooning, and after Harvard went on an 8-4 run to go up six with three minutes to go, Columbia locked down.

For the next 3:30, the Lions held the Crimson scoreless, routinely forcing Harvard into late shot clock heaves. After a Lo three-pointer cut the deficit to three with under a minute to go, Chambers almost missed the rim entirely on his next attempt.

However, the point guard would redeem himself a possession later. Finishing with 16 points, three assists, and no turnovers, the junior lived up to the moniker Amaker has always bestowed upon him—the team’s most important player.

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter at @CrimsonDPFreed.