Harvard Men’s Basketball Secures Senior Day Win Over Dartmouth, 66-58

Harvard took the court Saturday afternoon already officially eliminated from postseason contention, but looking to end the season on a high with a senior day win against an Ivy-Madness bound Dartmouth team. After honoring senior guards Evan Nelson, and Louis Lesmond, the Crimson did just that, never trailing in the second half enroute to a 66-58 victory over the Big Green.

Despite failing to make the postseason, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since the canceled 2020 Ivy Madness tournament, Harvard added two wins to its league record over last season, finishing with a 12-15, 7-7 Ivy record, good enough for fifth place in the conference. The Crimson has also gained momentum in the second half of the season, winning five of its last seven, with a tough home loss to Brown the only true blemish on that stretch.

“I'm really proud of our guys to be able to close after the gut wrenching loss to Brown and to be able to hold the fort here at home,” said head coach Tommy Amaker. “I'm really pleased and proud of their effort, their resilience, and to be able to bounce back. They could have easily hung their heads and called it a day, and in particular, our two seniors here this afternoon.”

In addition to the return of a few veteran leaders, this season also saw Harvard integrate a cast of seven first-years, headlined by guard Robert Hinton, who after his seven Rookie of the Week awards, is a strong favorite to take home this season’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year award.

Hinton led the scoring for the Crimson on senior day, posting a team high 18 points and six boards, to put an exclamation point on what has been a breakout season for the young star. After losing last season’s Rookie of the Year, Malik Mack, to Georgetown in a summer transfer, Harvard will be hoping to retain the talents of Hinton for next season.

Hinton expressed no interest in making a move away from Cambridge in a press conference after the Dartmouth win, but did share that he was recently invited to join the USA U-19 team to train over the summer.

“Obviously I would have never known that based off of this season, I was going to be invited to the Team USA, U-19 national team, which was a huge deal for me,” said Hinton. “I have a lot of people back home in Taiwan that I want to make proud, so over these next few weeks or months or whatever, I'm going to be talking with my family, but I'll figure out what I'm doing this summer, there's some options.”

It was Nelson, however, who appropriately scored seven of Harvard’s first 11 points in his final home game, to give the Crimson an early lead, 11-7.

After even exchanges with the Big Green, junior captain Chandler Piggé got the crowd on its feet, jumping into a passing lane to grab a steal, before rising up off of one foot to throw down an emphatic one-handed dunk.

A few minutes later, Lesmond, who had a relatively quiet scoring night by his standards, threw down a similarly powerful one-handed dunk to put Harvard up, 26-21.

Last weekend, the Crimson ruined Yale’s 12-0 start to the Ivy League season, in some part due to a showstopping three-point heave from first-year guard Austin Hunt, which helped Harvard retain a late lead.

Hunt continued this weekend where he left off, knocking down his first few threes to give the Crimson a 35-27 lead. Sophomore forward Thomas Batties II added another three, before showcasing his defensive prowess with a chasedown block on the other end of the floor, preserving a nine-point lead for his team heading into the halftime break.

Unlike in its fateful game against Brown last weekend, Harvard showed no sign of giving up its lead starting the second half, and pushed the margin to as large as 16 points early on in the period.

Dartmouth could not stop turning over the ball. With 10 minutes left in the game, the Crimson had already racked up 11 steals. Four of five Harvard starters finished the game with three steals each. However, the Crimson could not convert enough of these opportunities to bury the Big Green.

The visitors, showing flashes of what propelled them to second in the Ivy League after being voted last in the pre-season poll, began to chip away at the deficit.

With 10:46 left on the clock, senior forward Cade Haskins erupted for Dartmouth, shooting four consecutive three-pointers for the Big Green to cut the deficit to just four points, 53-49.

A jumper from Hinton and a timeout from coach Amaker initially appeared to quell that momentum, but after committing a foul in the bonus, Dartmouth converted both of its free throws to make it a two point game with 2:44 to play, 59-57.

Hunt was not finished, however, hitting a 3 from the top of the key to put Harvard back up five with 1:45 left. After another big block from Batties, Dartmouth elected to foul with 40 seconds to go. Batties and Piggé each coolly hit two free throws to ice the game and secure the win, 66-58.

Harvard now looks ahead to spring training and the offseason, with a plethora of new experiences to reflect on and without gametime to look forward to in March.

“I think these last two games, and this one here, this afternoon, you know, propels you going forward with spring workouts, summer, getting better, coming back in the fall,” said Amaker. “There’s a spirit and an energy that these guys finished well, and they grew throughout the season and they know that it can be a grind, it can be hard."

– Staff Writer Alexander K. Bell can be reached at alexander.bell@thecrimson.com.