First-Place Quakers Run Past Crimson

The streak continues.

Behind stellar three-point shooting and an unmatched defensive intensity, first-place Penn handed the Harvard men’s basketball team its fifth straight loss, 83-67, on Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

The Quakers (19-8, 10-1 Ivy) shot over 50 percent—12 of 23—from behind the arc and forced 21 Crimson turnovers in the victory. Offensive stalwart Mark Zoller led Penn with 21 points, including three three-pointers, and six of Penn’s 22 assists. Senior guard Ibrahim Jaaber added 19 points and two steals.

“I believe that Zoller and Jaaber are 1-2 for [Ivy League] Player of the Year,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “They are 1 and 2 in the league in terms of talent level.”

And the box score doesn’t tell the whole story—Jaaber’s defense forced the Crimson’s guards into multiple traveling violations and bad passes.

“You have to be real careful with the ball [against Jaaber],” freshman guard Jeremy Lin said. “You have to be real smart about choosing when to attack him. I think he’s at a different level than most of the guys we’ve played against.”

From the get-go, Harvard looked timid as the Quakers jumped out to a 7-0 lead. The Crimson clawed back early, behind two steals by sophomore forward Evan Harris, to get within two points at 13-11. Harvard would never get closer the rest of the game.

Penn used another 7-0 run, capped off by a Zoller trey, and later a 9-0 run to break the game open in the first half. The Quakers took a 42-27 lead into the locker room at the half.

The second half didn’t get much better. Penn came out firing, knocking down four straight three-pointers after the intermission. Zoller and Jaaber each hit one, and Penn freshman Darren Smith—who finished the game with five treys and 17 points—sank two.

“Tonight, the tempo was too fast, too quick,” Sullivan said. “Especially to start the game and to start the second half.”

Despite trailing by 21 points with just over 13 minutes remaining in the ballgame, the Crimson didn’t give up. Led by freshmen Pat Magnarelli and Lin, Harvard used a 13-4 run to get within 12 at 66-54. Lin notched seven of his 12 points in that stretch, while Magnarelli had four.

“It was good to see our young players stick their nose in there,” Sullivan said.

Penn responded again, outscoring the Crimson 16-6 over the next 4:30, capped off by nearly identical two-on-one fast breaks where Smith found Jaaber for easy layups, opening up their biggest lead of the ballgame at 82-60.

“I think we saw a high-quality basketball team with Friday night legs in the Ivy League,” Sullivan said. “We did a very fine job on the defensive boards…a good job on the offensive boards, had good contributions from the bench, but a 30-point differential from behind the three-point line is very tough to negate.”

Harvard was led by Harris’ 16 points, seven rebounds, and three steals, but as a team, the Crimson shot just 2-of-13 from three-point land.

The difference was clearly Jaaber and Zoller, who combined for 40 points and 11 assists and simply outworked the Crimson at times.

“Obviously, they’re exceptional players—Jaaber on defense, Zoller on offense” Lin said. “We had a tough time with them both games.”

“I think those guys both sense that this is their last chance to go to the NCAA tournament, this is their last chance to win the Ivy League championship,” Penn coach Glen Miller said of his stars. “They don’t want to get denied.”

—Staff writer Kevin C. Reyes can be reached at kreyes@fas.harvard.edu.