Men's Basketball Seeks Berth in NCAA Tournament

With the Harvard men’s basketball team (21-7, 11-3 Ivy) needing some magic to happen in Hanover, N.H. on Saturday night, Lady Luck shined again.

In many of the most critical victories during the Crimson’s run of five consecutive Ancient Eight championships, Harvard was not a participant. Three years ago, a loss by Penn in the season’s final game averted a playoff only one year after Princeton’s Douglas Davis tore out Harvard’s heart with a game-winner in the 2011 tiebreaker. In 2013, Harvard went into the final weekend down a game in the loss column to the Tigers before stunning black-and-orange collapses in New Haven and Providence gave the Crimson the title.

Saturday night, when Dartmouth overcame a five-point deficit with 35 seconds to go, Harvard once again grasped victory from the jaws of defeat. The Crimson’s reward for clinching its fifth consecutive conference championship is a rubber match with the Bulldogs (22-9, 11-3) Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.

“In these games, you just need to focus on the task at hand,” senior wing Wesley Saunders said. “Everybody is excited, everyone is...hyping everything up, and it’s on [us] to focus on locking in and being ready for whatever Yale throws at us.”

The teams split their earlier meetings, with Harvard notching a 52-50 win in New Haven in February before Yale returned the favor last Saturday. Junior Elis forward Justin Sears, the Ivy League Player of the Year, had just 10 points, but came up with two big threes to halt Crimson rallies in the second matchup. After Harvard got to within a point early in the second half, it was Yale’s other first-team All-Ivy player—senior guard Javier Duren—who put the game away with 11 points in the game’s final 88 seconds.

“We expect a battle every possession on the boards,” said junior point guard Siyani Chambers. “Nobody is going to let up, nobody is going to give in. We are going down there expecting a fight from them and that’s what we are going to bring to the table.”

To regain the advantage Saturday, the Crimson will need tostrenghen up on the boards like it did during the first outing. In New Haven, Harvard outrebounded the Elis by 10, getting 17 combined rebounds from its starting frontcourt of sophomore Zena Edosomwan and co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi.

In the rematch, Yale flustered the Crimson by throwing four bodies on the defensive glass, slowing down the pace, and using Duren (nine rebounds) to clean the glass. After a fast-paced first matchup, the Elis methodically probed the Harvard defense in the second. Swinging the ball around, Yale found the open shooter time after time—sinking almost 44 percent of its shots from deep.

For Harvard, the change in the game was in results, not process. In Cambridge, the Crimson routinely generated shots they wanted, but watched ball after ball hit off the rim. The Crimson’s best sharpshooter, sophomore guard Corbin Miller, launched nine shots and not one found the bottom of the net. In each instance but one—a forced on-the-run jumper Yale easily swatted away— Harvard coach Tommy Amaker noted afterwards he would take those opportunities every day of the week.

“I don’t think we are going to change anything,” Chambers said. “We played very well for certain stretches, not particularly great in other stretches, but if we do what we do and stick to our identity, we will have a chance out there.”

The playoff may come down to the team’s stars. Saunders, who was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection, had just three points in the second half of last week’s game—beaten on both ends of the floor by Duren, his Elis counterpart. Inside, Harvard had the edge, as Moundou-Missi (21 points, 10 rebounds) dominated a timid Sears, who had more fouls than made field goals.

If, however, the playoff comes down to an errant bounce, Amaker would not be surprised if Harvard needs to call Lady Luck’s number once again.

“You need to be good and you need to be lucky,” Amaker said. “I think it’s obvious when you get to these kind of moments, you need both of those elements to win games like this.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.