Men's Basketball Edges Bryant in Final Nonconference Bout

Putting together three separate streaks of eight or more unanswered points, the Harvard men’s basketball team (11-4, 1-0 Ivy) used a balanced scoring attack to put away Bryant (8-8, 5-1 NEC) late for a 66-57 victory on Tuesday.

The Crimson had three players score in double digits and had 12 assists on 23 made field goals while holding the Bulldogs to just 32.7 percent shooting from the field.

“This is going to be very similar to what our conference is going to be like,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “I was praising our kids in terms of their composure, making the necessary plays to put us in the position to win against a team that had been first in their league.”

With starting center Kenyatta Smith out due to injury, the Crimson flashed a number of new defensive looks that flummoxed Bryant in the first half. With junior wing Agunwa Okolie and senior wing Wesley Saunders occasionally stepping in as the four in small-ball lineups, Harvard held the Bulldogs to just 26.1 percent shooting in the first half with nearly twice as many turnovers (11) as baskets (six).

The two wings badgered Bryant’s star guard, Dyami Starks, all night long. Starks had 18 points, roughly on par with his season average, but needed 22 shots to get there. After making a layup to tie the game at 55 with 4:50 to go, Starks missed all three of his shots the rest of the way, as the Crimson ended the game on an 11-2 run.

“[Starks] is such an elusive and crafty shooter,” Amaker said. “Any good scorers, when they get one that goes in that’s clean, they heat up real quickly. I thought our perimeter defense with Agunwa and Wesley really tried to hound him because he’s such a dynamic offensive player.”

Early, however, the game closely resembled Harvard’s previous road tilts. In the midst of a difficult sequence that has the Crimson playing 10 of 12 contests on the road, Harvard has recently struggled away from home. Entering the game, the Crimson held a 3-4 record outside of Lavietes Pavilion and had put up four sub-20 point halves in its last five road games.

In Rhode Island Tuesday, neither team broke the five-point mark until nearly six and a half minutes had passed. The rest of the half oscillated like an anchored spring: twice Harvard rattled off nine unanswered points to put itself on the verge of a double-digit lead; twice Bryant battled back and closed the gap.

While the Crimson’s defense kept the Bulldogs at bay in the first half, Bryant came out of the locker room firing—and connecting. The hosts scored on five straight possessions, including two Starks treys, to tie the game at 36. They took their first lead scarcely more than a minute later on a Dan Garvin layup.

A three-point play by senior Jonah Travis put Harvard back in front, but a foul by the upperclassman on the other end gave the lead right back. In came Okolie, contorting in the lane for a layup that took the Bulldogs' final lead away with 12:35 left to play.

But the game remained far from over. Bryant kept the Crimson at arm’s length for the rest of the contest, tying the game on two separate occasions. Harvard's lead never grew larger than six points (51-45) down the stretch until a late 8-0 Crimson run put the game away.

“When two teams are battling, it can go either way,” sophomore Zena Edosomwan said. “It’s all the little plays you can make…. I think we were hungry and wanted to win it, and in order for us to do that, we had to make the winning plays.”

Crucial to staving off the Bulldogs was the play of starting forwards Steve Moundou-Missi and Edosomwan.

Moundou-Missi had his highest scoring output of the season with 15 points while providing his typical back line defense (two steals, two blocks). The co-captain added a critical three-point play to break the final tie of the game with 3:45 remaining and put Harvard up for good.

Edosomwan had 13 points and eight rebounds in 24 minutes while making his last five free throws down the stretch.

“For us to be able to outscore them 30-18 in the paint this game was a big key for us to be able to come out with a victory this evening,” Amaker said.

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at davidfreed@college.harvard.edu.