Men's Basketball Continues Quest for League Title

Around 7:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time last Saturday evening, everything appeared to be going right for Harvard men’s basketball.

Columbia had jumped out to a surprising 30-23 halftime lead over Yale, Penn was clinging to a slim 27-22 advantage over lowly Dartmouth at intermission, and the nationally ranked Crimson held an identical advantage over Princeton at the break.

By the end of the night, however, things had shifted dramatically. The Bulldogs had mounted a comeback of epic proportions to win by a point, a fall-away three-pointer by Zack Rosen had given Penn a 58-55 nailbiter over the Big Green, and the Tigers had used a 13-3 run late in the game to hand Harvard its first loss in Ivy play.

Despite having its hopes dashed of becoming the first team since Cornell’s 2007-08 squad to go 14-0 in league action, the first-place Crimson (21-3, 7-1 Ivy) remains in the pole position in the Ancient Eight. The other two teams that control their own destiny, Yale (16-6, 6-2) and Penn (13-11, 5-2), each have lost to Harvard on their home turf.

And so the road to the league title will go (literally) through Cambridge, where the Crimson currently boasts a 25-game home winning streak—the second-longest streak in the nation, trailing only Kentucky’s 49 consecutive home victories.

“Hopefully we don’t fall into the trap of thinking just because we’re home, things are supposed to turn out correctly,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “That’s a formula for disaster.”

The Crimson will have its first chance to extend the program-record run on Friday, when the seventh-place Bears will take the court riding a five-game losing streak, including a pair of defeats at Columbia and Cornell last weekend.

Friday’s 86-60 drubbing by the Lions was wholly forgettable for Brown, but it opened with a better showing the following night against Cornell, entering the half down two points before losing by nine.

Guard Matt Sullivan carried the squad in the absence of leading scorer Sean McGonagill, who had sustained a concussion the week before against Penn. Sullivan totaled 38 points over two games and was named to the weekly Ivy League Honor Roll.

“We’re trying to reinvent ourselves once again with the loss of another one of our players...our overall leading guy, [McGonagill],” said Bears coach Jesse Agel, who has been forced to cobble together a makeshift rotation after the loss of multiple key players to injury earlier in the year. “By the second night, I thought we adapted well and gave ourselves a chance to compete.”

Agel, whose squad competed in a nine-point home loss to Harvard three weeks ago, declined to comment on whether McGonagill would return this weekend.

Perimeter defense may prove to be a point of emphasis this weekend, as both Cornell and Columbia made more than half of their attempts from three-point land against the Bears.

Having shot just 27 percent from behind the arc since downing Yale three weeks prior, Harvard should relish the chance to rediscover its long-range stroke.  As for the Bears, 40.1 percent of their field goal attempts are three-pointers, placing them 36th in the country.

Visiting Lavietes Pavilion the following day after a Friday-night date with Dartmouth will be the Bulldogs, who will be seeking retribution for a 65-35 letdown loss to the Crimson three weeks ago.

The Bulldogs went 1-1 during its Empire State road trip this past weekend, finishing each in dramatic fashion.

“Playing on the road against those two teams in those environments was difficult, and I thought our guys did a good job being gritty and fighting to the end,” Yale coach Joe Jones said.

At Columbia Saturday, the Bulldogs rallied from a 21-point deficit with 11:30 left in the second half to come away with a 59-58 victory—its fourth in five games, including a home sweep of Penn and Princeton.

While Ivy scoring and rebounding leader Greg Mangano had just 11 points and six boards, forward Reggie Willhite scored six of his squad’s last nine points against the Lions, including the eventual game-winner.

He finished with a career-high 24 points and five assists, which earned the senior a spot on the league’s weekly Honor Roll. Since Yale’s first meeting with Harvard on Jan. 27, Willhite is averaging 15.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.

The night before, the Bulldogs found themselves on the other end of a one-point margin, falling in overtime to the Big Red, 85-84, in a loss that could have devastated their Ivy title hopes.

Instead Yale will take to the road in four of its six final games with plenty to play for; its 16 current victories are the most for any Bulldog team since the 2001-02 edition won 21.

Critical to Yale’s hopes of avenging their earlier loss to the Crimson—the most lopsided in the history between the two rivals—will be its ability to hold onto the ball. The Bulldogs rank 284th in the country in turnover percentage and gave the ball away to Harvard 22 times back in New Haven.

On Friday it again lost the turnover battle to Cornell, 15-11, but coughed it up only 14 times to the Lions’ 21 the following night.