Harvard Falls For First Time in Last Five Games At Yale, 59-50

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—With freshman point guard Tommy McCarthy sitting with a concussion, the Harvard men’s basketball team (11-16, 3-8 Ivy) struggled to generate offense all night against archrival Yale (19-6, 10-1) in a 59-50 loss.

The Bulldogs, which won for the first time in their last five home games against the Crimson, held Harvard to just 22 points in the first half and 40 percent shooting for the game. The team’s leading scorer for the season, junior forward Zena Edosomwan, did not have a single basket. While seniors Agunwa Okolie and Patrick Steeves picked up some of the slack, scoring 27 points, the rest of the team shot just over 30 percent.

“They’re very physical, athletic and we were somewhat overmatched there and that’s disappointing to have to say that, but that’s the way the game was for us,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said.

The two seniors led the team from beginning to end. Okolie had Harvard’s first five points of the game, including a rare three to kick off the scoring. Steeves matched him with seven first-half points, helping lift an offense that otherwise shot just 18 percent in the first session.

In the second half, the seniors led Harvard’s biggest push. After Yale extended its lead to 18 early in the second period, Amaker sent Edosomwan to the bench for the final 13 minutes of the game. In the absence of its leading post player, Harvard found new life—scoring nine straight points to cut the lead to single digits.

Steeves had a chance a possession later to cut the lead to seven, but had a costly miss. On Yale’s next trip down the floor, sophomore Makai Mason drilled his third triple of the game with a hand in his face. After a layup from freshman Weisner Perez cut the lead to 10, Yale held Harvard scoreless for the next four minutes and pushed the lead to 17. While Harvard ended the game on a 10-0 run (nabbing a backdoor cover in the process), it came with both teams playing backups.

“We played harder in the second half,” Okolie said. “We didn’t play a good first half at all, but guys were ready. We were down, we were in the same situation last Saturday at Cornell, so we just had to keep chipping away. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish.”

The biggest story early for the Bulldogs was their hustle on the offensive glass. With seniors Brandon Sherrod and Justin Sears relentlessly attacking the basket, Yale drew two early fouls on Edosomwan and then played volleyball on the backboard. The Bulldogs, which came in outrebounding opponents by an average of 10 boards a game, limited the Crimson to just two offensive rebounds and two second-chance points.

The larger effect was on the other end, however, where the Bulldogs overcame early shooting struggles by extending possession after possession. When Harvard mixed in some early zone looks, Yale’s senior duo swooped in to corral loose balls. When the Crimson collapsed, Sears and Sherrod (eight total assists) kicked the ball out to Yale’s shooters. A third of the Bulldogs’ first-half points came off offensive rebounds.

“It’s always very tough [to guard Yale],” Okolie said. “You have to cover the floor, but they have a lot of shooters as well. It would have been a lot easier for us if we held them to one shot but unfortunately, we couldn’t do that.”

The problems on the glass begat a larger offensive malaise in the paint for the Crimson. For the game, Harvard had just 18 points in the paint—just six more than it had on long two-point jump shots. Edosomwan, backup Chris Egi, and captain Evan Cummins had just one interior basket between them as Yale collapsed quickly on any Harvard post attempt, taking advantage of Harvard’s inability to find open shooters.

Harvard’s inability to drive the ball was a key factor in the team shooting just five free throws on the game. After the game, Amaker bemoaned his team’s inability to prop up an otherwise struggling offense at the charity stripe.

“We need to get to the foul line,” Amaker said. “We were one foul away from being in the bonus early in the second half and we were never able to push that to where we were utilizing the foul line to make our run which we were trying to do, and it just didn’t happen.”

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