Despite Strong Offensive Performance, Men's Basketball Unable to Slow Columbia

NEW YORK—For the second consecutive matchup between Harvard and Columbia, one shot turned the tables.

Last time out in Cambridge, it was a buzzer-beating jumper from Lions senior Alex Rosenberg, allowing Columbia to eke out a win.

This time at Levien Gym, the shot came from Columbia’s leading scorer, senior Maodo Lo. It looked like Harvard would be able to close out the first half down just two as senior forward Agunwa Okolie hit a jumper with five seconds remaining. But the Lions did not back down. Instead of running out the clock, Lo received a pass at half court and released. WIth the Lions fans on their feet, Lo’s shot banked off the backboard and into the net.

“We thought that was as big of a play in the entire game because of not so much just the three points, but how it changed the spirit for Lo,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “Certainly he was a different player and they would have been the same without that, but it certainly helped.”

While the Crimson hung on in the beginning of the second half, the dramatic shot changed the momentum for Lo and the Lions (18-8, 7-2 Ivy League), leading to an eventual 90-76 win over the Crimson (10-15, 2-7).

After scoring just two points prior to the heave, Lo went off in the second half. While Rosenberg led the Lions with 23 points on the night, Lo’s 17 second-half points put Harvard in a hole that it couldn’t escape.

“I noticed he was being a lot more aggressive in the second half,” freshman guard Tommy McCarthy said. “They run a lot of backdoors and stuff ... We went over it in practice this week and it’s something we shouldn’t have gotten beaten on and I had a couple lapses where I got beat.”

Despite the energy from the Lions following Lo’s shot, the Crimson held close through the first 10 minutes of the second frame, as it was able to pull within one-possession eight different times. However over the course of the next minute, the Lions took what was a two-point lead and stretched it to 10, with the run bookended with threes by junior Chris McComber and Lo. From that point forward, Amaker’s squad would never get closer than seven.

Midway through the first half, it looked like Lo might have been done for the night when he collided with freshman guard Corey Johnson under the basket and immediately grabbed his leg as he lay on the ground. The senior stayed down on the floor for several minutes as the trainer checked on his injury, but he eventually jogged off the floor on his own power, eventually returning to hit the half-court trey.

Harvard has struggled with consistency all year, typically either gaining a big lead, only to watch it crumble, or digging an early hole, forcing the team to forge a late comeback. For much of Friday’s game, however, the inconsistency manifested not as much in stretches of poor play, but in an inability to play both offense and defense.

Led by Okolie and McCarthy, who had 20 and 17 points respectively, the Crimson offense had one of its best games of the year by shooting at a 56.9 percent clip. But on the other end of the floor, the defense struggled to slow Columbia’s diverse offense.

“It’s very tough, like all five positions can drive the ball and all five positions can shoot the ball,” Okolie said. “[We] got lost in our rotations and they just stretched us out and made threes so it was tough for us on the defensive end.”

Columbia’s 90 points were the most given up by a Crimson defense this year, as the Lions’ reciprocated Harvard’s sharpshooting by making 57.4 percent of its own shots. It was the second time this season the Crimson gave up 50-plus points in a half.

While Columbia fights to stay alive atop the Ancient Eight, Harvard continues to separate itself at the bottom with the loss.

“We know we are not in the running for the Ivy League anymore but we are still focused on being a championship team,” McCarthy said. “We are not really worried about where we stand, we are worried about ourselves and focusing on becoming a championship team and sending the seniors out the right way.”

—Staff writer Theresa C. Hebert can be reached at theresa.hebert@thecrimson.com.