Men's Basketball Falls to Yale in Ivy League Semi-Final

Freshman guard Bryce Aiken notched a career-high 28 points against Yale, but they weren't enough to push the Crimson past the Bulldogs. By Derek G. Xiao

UPDATED: March 18, 2017 at 3:42 p.m.

All season, the Harvard men’s basketball team has been a study in the art of a comeback. The team has found itself on both ends of comebacks, including a collection of heartbreakers in the final games of the season. On Saturday night, it looked like the team had a chance to reverse its luck in buzzer beaters, but that wouldn’t be the case.

Freshman guard Bryce Aiken did everything he could to will the Harvard men’s basketball team to the Ivy League Tournament finale, but his 28 point effort wasn’t enough to overcome Harvard’s cold shooting. After beating Yale (18-10) in its first two contests of the regular season, the Bulldogs upset the Crimson, 73-71.

Sophomore forward Balsa Dragovic consoles co-captain Siyani Chambers after the Crimson fell short against the Bulldogs. By Derek G. Xiao

Though Harvard (18-10) trailed for 58 minutes of the contest, including by as many as 13 in the second half, the Crimson had life in the waning minutes. Trailing by five with 1:31 to go, Aiken got the ball at the top of the arc and dared Yale senior Sam Downey to stop him, but the 6’9’’ Downey couldn’t stop 6’0’’ Aiken and the Harvard rookie pulled his team within two. After a timeout, Harvard co-captain Siyani Chambers fouled Bulldog sophomore Trey Phills, who hit 1-of-2 free throws, but gave the Crimson the ball back with 21 seconds to go.

Yale knew Harvard would be looking for Aiken, and it was right. The Crimson got Aiken the ball and he put up a deep three that was no good. A long rebound was tipped out of bounds by the Bulldogs, giving Harvard another shot at a tie with 10.6 seconds on the clock.

Freshman forward Seth Towns inbounded the pass to senior center Zena Edosomwan, who simultaneously set a screen and handed the ball off to Chambers in the corner. Chambers was once again looking for Aiken’s hot hand. But once again, Yale knew it was coming, and Bulldog freshman Jordan Bruner intercepted Chambers’ skip pass.

“I’m pretty sure everyone on the floor knew Bryce was getting the ball,” Bruner said.

Bruner then iced the game with a free throw with six ticks on the clock, putting Harvard down four points. Edosomwan would get the last bucket of the game off an offensive rebound recovered after an Aiken miss, but all Yale had to do was inbound cleanly to seal the victory.

“You have to congratulate Yale for a tremendous effort on their part,” Amaker said. “I thought they played with great poise, made the necessary plays to close the game out but certainly our kids deserve a lot of credit for competing very hard.”

While Aiken was red hot, the rest of the Crimson roster couldn’t buy a basket. Though Harvard came into the game with the best offense in conference play, the Bulldogs held the Crimson to just 35.1 percent shooting from the floor. Even Aiken, who took the Harvard offense over, shot an inefficient 11-for-25. Most notably however was the poor shooting of freshman Seth Towns and sophomore Corey Johnson, who shot a combined 3-for-24, including 2-of-16 from behind the arc.

“We just didn’t have an opportunity to finish and convert in the moments when we had to,” Amaker said. “We were open, we had open threes and we wanted to take them, that’s how we’ve gotten to this point but we certainly didn’t have it this afternoon.”

It took nearly three minutes for Harvard to get on the board in the contest. The team started 0-for-5 from the floor until freshman forward Chris Lewis cleaned up a Towns miss under the basket.

Coming into the weekend, Amaker noted a few keys to the game for Harvard success—rebounding and slowing down Yale sophomore Alex Copeland were two big ones.

The team succeeded on the first of those notes, outrebounding the Bulldogs 46-43 in the contest despite the size and skill of the Yale front line and the length of its starting backcourt. Edosomwan had 13 rebounds on the day, a near even split between offense and defense.

The team struggled to slow Copeland in the first frame, however. In all three games of the series against Yale this year, Copeland and Aiken have traded baskets and faced each other on defense and in the first half on Saturday, Copeland was winning the battle. Copeland finished the half with 12 points compared to eight for Aiken.

Freshman guard Bryce Aiken had the hot hand against the Bulldogs, notching 28 points—a career-high. By Derek G. Xiao

But in the second half, Aiken came alive, including a stretch in which the rookie had 12 of Harvard’s 15 points over a four-minute period. The scoring came in a combination of step-back jumpers and drives through the paint. Only one of Aiken’s buckets was assisted, while Harvard registered an assist on nine of its other 16 field goal makes.

“He’s a creative shot maker and playmaker and we needed him to do exactly that,” Amaker said.”I thought he did a tremendous job of putting us in position to have an opportunity to pull it out. We wouldn’t have even been close if he wasn’t able to have some heroic shots and big plays that he made for our team.”

Though the Crimson fell short on Saturday, this likely isn’t the last time that Harvard will find itself playing this late in March. While Towns had an off night, freshman forward Chris Lewis stepped up with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting and freshman guard Justin Bassey has been a defensive presence all season.

“I think the potential is very high,” Chambers said. “As you can see, Bryce stepped up again today like he’s done a countless number of times this season. Seth had an off-night but he’ll pick it back up. Our guys, like all the freshmen in the league, are very talented and when they come to maturation down the line in a couple years it’s going to be crazy what their potential is.”

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