Men's Basketball Beats Yale in Ivy Playoff, Clinching NCAA Tournament Berth

UPDATED: March 14, 2015, at 8:30 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA—“I was wide open.”

“It went in.”

That’s how co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi described one of the biggest shots in Harvard men’s basketball history. It was an eighteen-footer from just right of the top of the key. It left Moundou-Missi’s hands with eight seconds left and his team tied at 51 against Yale in Saturday’s Ivy Playoff game.

It went in.

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Senior forward Steve Moundou-Missi hits the game-winner with 7.2 seconds left to lift Harvard over Yale, 53-51, in Saturday's Ivy League Playoff game. By Robert F Worley

“This is what you dream about.”

That’s what senior wing Wesley Saunders said about the win—about the run he’s had. The 53-51 victory sends the Crimson to its fourth straight NCAA Tournament. Saunders has had the same spring break plans every year of his college career.

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“What an afternoon.” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said in an understatement as usual. “What an afternoon for Ivy League basketball.”

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Before Moundou-Missi’s shot, there was the pass.

Saunders had scored 18 of the Crimson’s 28 second-half points coming into the possession (he finished with 22 points in the game), so Amaker put the ball in his playmaker’s hands once more.

With the shot clock off, Saunders started dancing towards the hoop. “Wait! Wait!” coaches and players yelled to him from the bench. Wait he did, backing out and exchanging the ball with junior co-captain Siyani Chambers as the clock showed 20 seconds left, and then 15.

Eventually Saunders got the ball back and strode to his right. He crossed his defender over and moved towards the hoop. Eight feet away from it, he picked up his dribble and half-spun into the paint until his back was to the basket. That’s when he saw Moundou-Missi curling behind him, his defender focused on Saunders’ drive.

Saunders dumped the ball back and Moundou-Missi did the rest.

“I trust Steve to knock down that shot more than I trust myself,” Saunders said. “I was just looking to make a play, and I got into the paint and they collapsed, and he made the right play to come behind and knock down the shot.”

Amaker tried to call a timeout at that point, but the officials did not hear him as the Bulldogs inbounded the ball and raced up the court. Javier Duren got by Saunders inside the arc and leaned around Moundou-Missi to throw up a shot with one second left. He said afterwards he thought it was going in. It didn’t, and neither did a tip back attempt from Justin Sears.

The Harvard players screamed towards the middle of the court. Almost exactly a week earlier, some of them had celebrated in an empty Lavietes Pavilion as Dartmouth beat Yale with a buzzer-beater to force Saturday’s tie-breaking Playoff game.

Now they got to celebrate with a horde of Crimson supporters, having beaten the Elis with a late game shot of their own.

That shot meant Harvard could forget its loss to Yale last week and the nine-point lead it let slip away in the final minutes this Saturday.

After a back-and-forth first half, the Crimson had opened up a 46-37 lead with a little over six minutes remaining thanks to a 15-point Saunders outburst over just eight minutes of play. It started with an and-one layup and included back-to-back three-pointers, the second of which Saunders celebrated by galloping nearly the length of the floor.

With 1:27 left in the game, Saunders was jumping again, but this time in frustration rather than elation.

Yale had put together a 12-2 run over the preceding few minutes, starting with an and-one from Sears and including six straight made free throws from Duren. That stretch ended when the Bulldogs took a 49-48 lead with 1:47 left on a Makai Mason jumper, eliciting a roar from the blue half of The Palestra.

Saunders thought he had recaptured the lead on the ensuing possession by driving diagonally from right to left across the basket, throwing up a shot with his right hand along the way. It went in despite a foul, but the officials ruled that contact came before the shot, meaning it would not count. Saunders protested while jumping up and down.

The officials decided to review the call and ultimately ruled in Saunders’ favor. The basket counted and he got a free throw. He nailed it to put Harvard up, 51-49.

Duren then tied the game with 55 seconds to play with two more free throws after being fouled with three seconds left on Yale’s shot clock.

The Crimson wound the shot clock down on its next possession before Moundou-Missi got an open look in the corner with 37 seconds left. Afterwards, he said that he thought the shot was going in, but it rattled it. A battle for the rebound led to the ball bouncing out of bounds. The officials said it bounced off a Bulldog and confirmed the call after a video review, setting up Moundou-Missi for his historic redemption.

—Staff writer Jacob D.H. Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com.