Notebook: Tough Shooting, Slow Start Doom Men's Basketball at Columbia

NEW YORK, N.Y.—With just over three seconds left on the clock senior guard Siyani Chambers ran the length of the floor and threw up a last second three with Harvard down by three. The basket didn’t fall, however, and the Crimson came just short of coming back from a deficit as large as 19 at one point.

Coming off a matchup where the Crimson rallied late to take a win against Cornell, Saturday’s late effort simply wasn’t enough as Harvard struggled to shoot the ball and sent the Lions to the line early and often.

Despite a strong second half from freshman Seth Towns and sophomore Corey Johnson—who scored 18 in the second half alone—the Crimson’s early struggles were too much to overcome as Harvard (11-6, 3-1 Ivy League) fell to Columbia (9-8, 3-1), 65-62.

TOUGH START

Despite taking an early lead, Harvard struggled to hold back Columbia’s offense late in the first half. Compounded with a barrage of turnovers, the Crimson ended the half down by 15—their largest halftime deficit in a conference game this season.

“Throughout the year we’ve struggled in the first half,” Johnson said. “We always knew we were going to come out in the second half and make a run. We never have doubt in ourselves that we can’t come back in a game.”

In the first frame—and much like it would for the rest of the game—Harvard struggled to find the bottom of the net. Through 20 minutes the Crimson shot just 26 percent from the field and 19 percent from beyond the arc.

Aside from freshman Chris Lewis, no Harvard player converted a field goal more than once in the first half. Sophomore guard Corey Johnson, who finished with a game-high 21 points on 7-of-14 shooting, finished the first half with only three points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field.

To add to the Crimson’s shooting woes, the Lions got their offense going early and kept up the pace late. After being tied at 20, Columbia would go on a 21-6 run to take a dominant lead late in the first. For its part, Harvard struggled to take care of the ball, turning it over five times in the last five minutes of the half and a total of 10 times over the whole frame.

Despite the success of Crimson’s bench over the season, Harvard’s reserves struggled to play the role they’ve played all season. With Columbia coach Jim Engles rotating players early and often, the Lions bench would outscore the Crimson’s 23-10 through the first half.

ROUGH SHOOTING

For Harvard, the shots just didn’t seem to fall on Saturday as the early shooting struggles extended into the rest of the game. In the second frame the Crimson shot 37 percent from the field and 30 percent from three.

On the game, Harvard took a season 39 shots from deep, but only connected on 10 of these with 7 coming courtesy of Johnson. To add to the struggles from behind the arc, the Crimson struggled to get the ball inside—Harvard was outscored 26-12 in the paint and despite sending Columbia to the line for 24 free throws, the Crimson hardly managed to outrebound the Lions.

For its part Columbia forced fouls inside while shooting well from deep. The Lions went 8-of-16 from deep and made it to the line often. Just over eight minutes into the second half Columbia was in the bonus, and despite only shooting 54 percent at the line, outscored Harvard in free throws.

“I wish I could say more about [the foul trouble],” head coach Tommy Amaker said. “Right away it was six to zero with fouls and it sort of put us in a bad spot clearly. They were the aggressor on their end and we weren’t in very good position.”

Chambers, who took the desperation shot to try and tie the game as the buzzer sounded, had an off night on the scoring front. Though the Crimson doesn’t look to Chambers to carry the scoring burden, the senior had just two points in 33 minutes on the floor, both of which came at the charity stripe.

On the game Harvard shot 32 percent from the field and 26 percent from deep.

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at troy.boccelli@thecrimson.com.