Aiken Hits Another Buzzer-Beater as Men's Basketball Edges Yale

Bryce Aiken did it again.

In front of 45 friends and family inside a thunderous, sold-out John J. Lee Amphitheater, Aiken went coast-to-coast and flushed a step-back jumper over Yale’s Trey Phills as the horn sounded.

The junior point guard was swarmed instantaneously by the Crimson bench, stunning the crowd at New Haven that had seen its team’s six-point lead in the final two minutes vanish. A critical open-lane dunk and corner triple in the final minute by freshman Kale Catchings — who earned a career-high 16 points in his first ever start — upended a Bulldogs lead the hosts had held since the 10-minute mark.

“We needed everyone to have a victory like this tonight because of how good Yale is and how athletic they are,” Amaker said. “I can't say enough about our team and what we were able to accomplish — making decisions in critical moments and certainly making plays and shots to get the win. So proud of our kids for the effort that they brought after last night[’s loss to Brown].”

Yale guard Alex Copeland capped off an efficient 21-point outing with a deep triple in the waning 10 seconds of the contest to even the contest at 86-86, but 7.8 seconds still remained on the clock. Bryce Aiken used every single remaining second to pull off another magical clincher.

“I saw there was 7.8 seconds on the clock, so that was more than enough time for us to get a shot up,” Aiken said. “My teammates trust me, my coach trusts me, the whole program does…What my team trusts me to do is make that last play and luckily it went in.”

Outside of his buzzer-beater, Bryce Aiken added 28 points in the contest. By Quinn G. Perini

This was the third of the past six games in which Aiken’s final-second heroics salvaged a Crimson victory. The Randolph, NJ., native drilled a double-clutch heave against Columbia to force double-overtime, followed by a desperation three that found the bottom of the net in Harvard’s 75-68 overtime victory at the Palestra.

With the victory, the Crimson tallied its seventh Ancient Eight win and swept the league-leading Bulldogs, whose only two conference losses have come at the hands of Coach Tommy Amaker’s side. Similar to past contests, this game was a back-and-forth outing: the contest had a total of 17 lead changes.

“They got some great energy from the kid [Kale] Catchings coming off the bench, playing really hard.” Yale coach James Jones said. “He made a couple of great plays in the game and and he certainly was a difference. Sometimes that works where you light a fire under guy and he just comes out and just plays as hard as he can.”

Amaker, with program cornerstone Justin Bassey in sweatpants after suffering a lower leg injury Friday night against Brown, made a bold shift to his opening lineup. Juniors Chris Lewis and Robert Baker remained on the pine at tip-off. In their stead, two freshmen —Catchings and Mason Forbes — were called pregame by the PA announcer for the first time in their careers. While Catchings had seen limited action in Ivy play, Forbes had tallied just three minutes of game action since Jan 21.

While Forbes and classmate Noah Kirkwood had quiet nights on the offensive end, the two contributed in crucial fashion on the opposite end. Forbes altered several shots from a rim-hungry Yale squad, while Kirkwood was tasked with covering the Bulldogs’ best player, junior wing Miye Oni. Importantly, Kirkwood drew a charge on the Bulldogs’ 21-point man at the 11-minute mark that sent Oni to the bench with four fouls. The Yale sharpshooter’s troubles avoiding the referee’s whistle in the second half was a game-shifter for the Bulldogs as Oni saw the floor for only eight minutes in that frame.

“Kale and Mason were the two that we inserted in the lineup, for energy, for defense, for their toughness, their grit,” Amaker said. “I thought they both played exceptionally well tonight. I had no hesitation about making that kind of decision in this kind of game, in this kind of environment and they certainly proved me to be correct.”

First-year Kale Catchings notched a career-high 16 points against Yale, including a critical late-game three. By Quinn G. Perini

Without its best player on the court at the halfway point of the half, Yale was not deterred and instead sprinted out to its own 9-4 run to pull away to a 77-70 lead at the 6:16 mark. In response, Amaker re-inserted Lewis — who had sat out the majority of the second frame. The Alpharetta, Ga., native provided two aggressive rim finishes, which compounded by a Danilo Djuricic fast-break dunk and a Christian Juzang triple in the 6 minute-to-4 minute span suddenly brought the contest back to a one-possession margin at 79-77.

Almost re-handing the game back to the home side, the Crimson followed that series with two giveaways — the first which ended in a Miye Oni fast-break jam — but the aforementioned Catchings and Aiken once again willed Harvard back from that six-point deficit. Catchings had himself a breakout game, fighting for three steals and bulldozing his way into the paint for a pair of two-handed slams as well as two up-and-under lay-ins.

“I stay ready whenever I can,” Catchings said. “ And I have great mentors and upperclassmen. I get to room with Justin Bassey every weekend whenever we go on these road trips. Just being able to see him and how he goes about every day in practice, what his routine looks like, and seeing how he works, I realized I can go out there and try to replicate the best I can give.”

The Bulldogs, who entered Saturday’s outing seventh in the NCAA in field goal percentage(49.8), jumped out to a lightning-hot start in front of a boisterous crowd at the John J. Lee Amphitheater. Off four triples from sharpshooter Miye Oni, Yale exploded to a perfect 10-for-10 start. On the opposite end, the visitors languished out of the locker room for the second straight night, converting on two buckets in the opening four minutes.

By the 14:30 mark, the Bulldogs had widened its margin to 24-10 and the game appeared to be at risk of getting away from Harvard. But a fast-break layup from Bryce Aiken followed by an invigorating open-lane dunk from Catchings tempered the Yale run. Sophomore Danilo Djuricic, who did not enter the contest until the 10:45 point, provided a much-needed lift off the bench — immediately finding net on two triples. The Canadian also added a mid-range jumper at the five-minute mark to will the team back to a one-point deficit, before a Kirkwood three helped the Crimson eclipse the Bulldogs for the first time in the contest two minutes later. A Forbes tip-in concluded Harvard’s offense output in the first half, as it trailed by just one entering the locker-room.

The second half started off with both sides exchanging points and this would prove to be a sign of things to come in the final minutes. Yale quickly tallied a flurry of fouls in a scrappy second half. Outside of a Catchings layup four minutes into the half, Harvard scored only off free throws — 8 to be specific — in the first five minutes. Aiken’s 13-of-15 night from the charity stripe combined with a 22-of-27 outing from the line was a critical factor in keeping the Crimson within striking distance.

On the night as a whole, Aiken was just two points shy of another 30-point outing, while the Crimson shot 28-of-55 from the field. Harvard out-rebounded Yale by six boards, despite playing small ball for most of the contest. Six players on the visiting side converted a triple in a 45 percent night from the arc.

“I think we were really fortunate tonight to beat the best team in our league on their home floor,” Amaker said. “ …So we just think they have a lot of right pieces of the puzzle they play well with. James [Jones] has done a tremendous job and terrific effort that they put forth tonight, and we were fortunate to get the win.”

—Staff writer Henry Zhu can be reached at henry.zhu@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @Zhuhen88.