Crimson Plays Final Home Weekend

About 51 weeks ago, the Harvard men’s basketball team welcomed Penn and Princeton to Lavietes Pavilion with a share of the Ivy title on the line. The stakes surrounding this weekend’s visits by the Quakers and the Tigers remain the same, but with a few added twists.

Now in first place rather than second, the Crimson (23-3, 9-1 Ivy) will also have the luxury of an additional pair of games to attempt to become sole champions of the league for the first time in school history.

Even if it picks up a sweep this weekend, Harvard will likely need at least one win at Cornell or Columbia during the final weekend of the season in order to avoid another shared title and playoff for the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

But first it will have to take care of business in sold-out games against two of the top four Ivy teams on its home hardwood, where it has won 27 consecutive contests, the second-longest streak in the country.

Harvard added to the school-best run this past weekend in two of its most decisive victories in several weeks.

On Friday evening the Crimson took care of Brown (7-20, 1-9), which suited up only nine players due to injury. Overcome by adversity rather than overcoming it, the Bears fell behind by 21 points by halftime and eventually were blown out, 69-42.

The following evening looked to be a far more contentious matchup, as Yale (17-7, 7-3) arrived in Cambridge sitting in second place in the Ancient Eight and hoping to avenge a 65-35 drubbing at the hands of its Ivy rival a month ago. An upset would have helped the Bulldogs make a run at their first league championship since 1962, but Yale found itself down by as much as 20 in the first half and came away with a disappointing 66-51 defeat.

Few expect similar margins of victory this Friday, when fourth-place Princeton (15-10, 6-3) comes to town. Led by junior forward Ian Hummer’s game-high 20 points and nine rebounds, the Tigers handed Harvard its only Ivy loss of the season two weeks ago at Jadwin Gymnasium.

Third in the nation in points allowed per game, the Crimson will look to a renewed defensive effort, especially late in the second half, to help find retribution against last year’s league co-champion.

“[Princeton] spreads the floor, and Hummer is just a very tough matchup. He’s a guy who can put it on the floor, shoot it from the outside, but also post up,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “I thought they got too much on the interior against us, whether it was back cuts or we failed to call out some screening action. Hopefully we can do a much better job defending the Princeton offense.”

After a Friday date with the Crimson’s travel partner Dartmouth, second-place Penn (15-11, 7-2) will arrive in Cambridge on Saturday as the only other Ivy squad that controls its own destiny.

After losing to Harvard two weeks ago in Philadelphia, the Quakers have reeled off three straight victories and are capable of highly complicating the league race with a strong performance in Saturday’s contest, which will be shown on ESPN3.com.

Penn is led by senior guard Zack Rosen, whose role in his squad’s pair of wins last weekend earned him the honor of Ivy Player of the Week.

The first-team all-Ivy veteran scored 13 points in last Friday’s game’s final four minutes to dig the Quakers out of a four-point hole, finishing with 25 points, six assists and five rebounds. And in Saturday’s thrilling overtime victory against Columbia, Rosen had 14 points, six rebounds, and five assists.

With 1.5 seconds left in overtime, Rosen drew a critical double team to free up big man Fran Dougherty, who laid in an inbounds pass to give Penn a 61-59 victory over the Lions.

As always, Rosen will be a point of emphasis for the Harvard defense, which kept him to 6-of-21 shooting from the floor several weeks ago.

“Rosen is the key to that team. We know he’s going to get his numbers,” co-captain Keith Wright said. “We’re just going to have to do a great job, team-wise, defensively helping [junior point guard Brandyn Curry] as much as we can.”

While Quaker sophomore guard Miles Cartwright totaled 30 points in two games over the weekend, Penn coach Jerome Allen may be forced to go without the final member of the team’s formidable backcourt trio against Harvard.

Senior shooter Tyler Bernardini appeared to aggravate a preexisting foot injury on Saturday against the Lions, and his status remains day-to-day.

After limiting Bernardini to two points on 0-of-5 shooting in the teams’ first meeting, the Crimson may need to shift its attention to the Quakers’ sophomore guard Steve Rennard, who has stepped up in the veteran’s absence.

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu.