No. 21/25 Men's Basketball Emerges From Rowdy Palestra With 56-50 Win Against Penn

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—On yet another night when the nation was captivated by “Linsanity,” the No. 21/25 Harvard men’s basketball team continued to steamroll toward  one feat Jeremy Lin ’10 never achieved during his time in Cambridge: an Ivy League championship.

Facing a rowdy crowd of nearly 7,500 at a sold-out Palestra, Harvard (21-2, 7-0 Ivy) relied on stingy defense and clutch shooting to emerge with a 56-50 win over Penn (12-11, 4-2) Friday night.

“Penn played extremely well tonight; I’ve got to give them credit,” junior forward Kyle Casey said. “They played great defense, and they threw everything into the game, so I think we really had to grind it out tonight and stick together and really buckle down when we needed to.”

While the team’s veterans kept the squad composed in front of a boisterous student section hungry to witness its second upset of an Ivy League Top 25 team in three years, it was a freshman who stepped up in one of the Crimson’s biggest games of the season to date.

Harvard received an offensive spark off the bench from rookie guard Corbin Miller, who finished 17 points and knocked down three clutch free throws at the end of the game, helped preserve his squad’s undefeated conference record.

“My teammates really did a great job of penetrating and finding me, and I was ready to knock down the shots,” Miller said.

Defensively, the Crimson held the Quakers’ Tyler Bernardini and Zack Rosen—first and third respectively in the Ancient Eight in three-point percentage—to a combined 2-for-11 shooting from long range.

“I think they did a solid job, but we had an opportunity to make plays, and we just didn’t,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said.

Harvard went into the half with a 28-23 lead that was extended to seven when co-captain Oliver McNally drove baseline and hit a layup to start the second half. From there, Penn went on a 7-0 run capped by a three from sophomore guard Miles Cartwright that tied things up at 30 and sent the home fans into a frenzy.

But the Crimson responded with a 7-0 spurt of its own that consisted of a Miller three, a Steve Moundou-Missi reverse layup, and a McNally running floater.

“We certainly answered [Penn’s run] in a strong fashion by responding right away, which I thought was another indication of the leadership and the guts of our team that we’ve shown thus far this season,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said.

The Crimson advantage got as large as 10, 44-34, on another Miller three from the right wing at the 6:42 mark in the half. The Quakers cut the deficit to six moments later off a tip-in by forward Henry Brooks, but Casey responded with a turnaround jumper to put Harvard ahead, 49-41.

“The guy who was guarding me [Rob Belcore] was kind of slacking off and really biting on the jabs,” said Casey, who finished with 15. “I tried to be aggressive tonight, but every night with our offense it’s someone different, and it just happened to be me [who had success] tonight.”

By the time Penn was able to get within four at 51-47, there were just 33 seconds left in the game. From there, Miller went to the line and calmly hit two free throws to extend the lead to six.

Rosen hit a desperation three at the other end to make it a one-possession contest, and the Crimson again put the ball in the hands of the rookie. Miller missed the first free throw—bringing the crowd to its most vociferous point—but knocked down the second to ice the win for Harvard. “[He’s an] amazing shooter,” co-captain Keith Wright said. “He gave us a huge lift, especially because I wasn’t scoring a lot. We have guys that can pick other guys up. That’s the scary thing about this team—we’re deep.”

The game was close throughout a back-and-forth first half that was tightly officiated and defensively dominated.

But the Crimson was able to open up a lead as the period wound down. After a Fran Dougherty layup put the Quakers ahead, 17-14, Harvard responded with an 11-0 run highlighted by a Moundou-Missi baseline jumper, a Miller transition three, and a long Casey jumper from the top of the key.

“We’ve talked a lot this season of our bench and our balance being the keys for our ball club,” Amaker said. “[Miller and Moundou-Missi] coming off the bench gave us incredible production.”

Meanwhile, Rosen missed two threes at the other end—he would finish 6-for-21 from the floor on the night—and the Harvard run was not halted until a Marin Kukoc three cut the Penn deficit to 25-20 with 1:52 to go.

Bernardini, the senior who came in averaging over 15 points per game, did not score in the first half and finished with just two points on 0-of-5 shooting from the field. Meanwhile, Wright, Rivard, and Curry—three of Harvard’s top four scorers—were a combined 1 of 15.

“It was one of those games where the shooting wasn’t there for either team,” Amaker said.

Harvard’s win, combined with Yale’s loss to Cornell, gives the Crimson a two-game cushion in its quest for its first outright Ivy championship in team history.

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.