Rally Falls Short as Harvard Drops Heartbreaker

“I believe that we will win,” was the chant radiating from the Harvard student section Friday night.

Despite their team being down by 11 points with just over five minutes left, the white-clad fans packed into the student section retained hope. Even as the Crimson trailed by eight with 66 seconds left, the crowd stuck by its mantra.

And if a last-second three-point attempt from co-captain Jeremy Lin had fallen, the crowd’s faith may just have been rewarded.

But Lin’s shot clanged off the front rim, and the Crimson’s last-minute comeback fell short as the Harvard men’s basketball team (14-5, 3-2 Ivy) lost to Princeton (12-5, 3-0 Ivy) by three, 56-53, at Lavietes Pavilion.

Without the presence of its second-leading scorer and leading rebounder—sophomore Keith Wright, who missed the game with Achilles tendonitis—the Crimson struggled to gain a presence in the paint and was forced to rely on its outside shooting. But the streaky Crimson shot just 36 percent from the field, posting its second-lowest offensive total of the season.

“It was hard for us to score inside,” said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, who played just three forwards. “It puts a lot of pressure on those perimeter shooters. I thought that our shooting, or inability to make some open shots,...really kind of zapped our spirit.”

But despite its poor shooting, Harvard managed to take a game that appeared to be all over all the way to the wire.

With the Tigers leading by eight with just over a minute to play, the Crimson manufactured a last-ditch comeback that gave Harvard an opportunity to send the game into overtime on the final possession.

Lin ignited the Crimson run, elevating over his defender to stick a three-pointer that cut the deficit to five with 55.9 seconds remaining.

Harvard sophomore Oliver McNally intentionally fouled Princeton’s Pawel Buczak on the Tigers’ next possession. The center missed the front end of the one-and-one, and the Crimson rushed back down the court.

Lin attacked off a screen from forward Kyle Casey and then hit the freshman as he popped out behind the perimeter. Casey coolly sank the jumper, and with 39.6 remaining, Harvard was within two. The Crimson set up in its full-court press, but the Tigers inbounded the ball to Dan Mavraides. Lin attempted to poke the ball away from the guard but was whistled for the foul. Mavraides sank both free throws, extending his team’s lead to four with 38.9 ticks left.

Coming out of a timeout, Lin got to the basket, but the senior’s shot fell short. Despite the crowd’s pleas, no foul was called.

Harvard sent Mavraides back to the charity stripe, where he knocked down the first and missed the second, putting the Tigers’ lead at five.

With the shot clock off and time winding down, the Crimson managed to get an improbable four-point play from freshman Christian Webster. Webster, who started the game 0-for-3 from deep, caught the ball in the corner and hit the shot as he was fouled by Mavraides. After netting the free throw, Harvard was within a single point with 11.7 seconds left.

The Crimson’s full-court pressure on the ensuing inbound pass forced Princeton to take a timeout to avoid a five-second call as the crowd erupted.

Suddenly the chants of “I believe that we will win” did not seem so ridiculous.

The Tigers managed to inbound the ball to Kareem Maddox. After being fouled, Maddox walked the length of the court to the stripe, where he was able to knock down the first, and then the second.

“I thought [Maddox] played a tremendous game,” Amaker said. “I thought he was the difference. It seemed like every time that they broke down a little bit, he made the play.”

With Harvard down by three with the final possession, everyone in the crowd knew whose hands the ball would be in. Lin received the ball a few feet beyond the arc with just a handful of ticks on the clock. The guard worked off a screen from Casey but ran into traffic and dished it to the rookie on the perimeter. Casey looked to the basket, but upon seeing the defender in his face, passed it back to Lin, who was now feet beyond the three-point line.

Lin lofted a shot that clanged off the front of the rim as the buzzer sounded, which silenced the Crimson crowd and sent the Princeton players into a frenzy.

“It was a desperation shot,” Lin said. “We ran a quick screen and roll at the top of the key. I was hoping both defenders would come with me, but one stayed with Kyle and that disrupted it because no one was open.”

The loss—Harvard’s first at home all season—drops the Crimson to 3-2 in the Ivy League, making it unlikely that the Jeremy Lin era of Harvard basketball will conclude with the program’s first-ever league championship.

“It puts us in a huge hole, but we just got to take care of everything one game at a time,” Lin said. “It puts us really far behind but we understand crazier things have happened. We have to make sure we don’t drop any more games.”

—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.