Men's Basketball Fades Down the Stretch Against Providence

In its first road contest of the year, the Harvard men’s basketball team (1-1) succumbed to the relentless pressure of the Providence Friars (1-0), committing 22 turnovers in a 76-64 loss.

The Crimson held its opponent to under 40 percent shooting from the field and blocked seven shots, but its offense was often its worst defense—Providence turned 14 steals into 18 points, four coming in the deciding 15-2 second half run.

“I thought we really competed and gave great effort,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “I thought we really fought. Silly turnovers and some things like that hurt us, but I trust our guys to grow through the fire.”

A day before, Amaker’s presser centered on the first four minutes of the second half—a part of the game he constantly harps on. In its opener against MIT, the Crimson men’s basketball team took its lead from two to 17 with a quick spurt to begin the second period. A day later, Harvard scored 12 of the first 18 points in the second half to pull even at 41. The Dunkin Donuts Center, rowdy throughout the first half, became silent.

Then the Kris Dunn show started in earnest.

The senior, whom NBC Sports ranked as the best player in college basketball before the season, had seven steals in the first half but shot just 2-of-10 from the field. Playing in front of nearly 10,000 fans—many wearing the “Get It Dunn” shirts distributed before the game—Dunn steadied himself and the team quickly. Rodney Bullock broke the 41-all tie with a layup, but Dunn did the rest.

In the ensuing five and a half minutes, he outscored the Crimson 14-5. He punctuated a personal 9-0 run with a dunk that pushed the lead to 13 and had both Dunn and his coach Ed Cooley gesturing for the crowd to get on its feet.

A floater by senior Agunwa Okolie temporarily stopped the bleeding, but Dunn tore the wound wide open. He followed Harvard’s first basket in four and a half minutes with a layup in traffic; two possessions later, he held the ball at the top of the key for 25 seconds before draining his only three-pointer of the night to push the lead to 13.

Harvard threatened just once more, cutting the lead to nine with 5:30 to go. Yet Dunn would not be denied, scoring four straight points for his side. On the night, he finished with 32 points, six rebounds, five assists, two blocks, and eight steals while holding freshman Tommy McCarthy to nine points—none in the second half—on 2-of-13 shooting.

“Kris Dunn was sensational and had as complete a game as you can ask for in a backcourt player,” Amaker said.

Junior forward Zena Edosomwan, who had 13 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, simply shook his head when asked to describe Dunn’s performance.

“He’s just a great player—one of the best players in college basketball,” Edosomwan said.

For the first 25 minutes of the game, the story was the freshman Crimson backcourt. Rookie Corey Johnson led Harvard with 17 points, making five of his 10 treys. McCarthy and Johnson had 21 of the Crimson’s 29 first-half points between them, keeping the game within arm’s reach with a barrage of threes.

Johnson and McCarthy were forced to carry the scoring load because of foul trouble that kept Edosomwan and Okolie on the bench for much of the first half. The two combined for 20 second-half points but had just three before the break.

Afterwards, both players and coach bemoaned the team’s inability to stop Providence runs. Twice, the Friars scored nine unanswered points as the Crimson struggled to go “stop basket stop”—the team’s motto for breaking runs. After getting back-to-back Edosomwan dunks to tie the game at 41, Harvard never scored more than one unanswered bucket the rest of the way.

“You see some of the big swings with our team and the inexperience and youth in some areas,” Amaker said. “Zena is a junior, but being in this role is different, and this is the first time around for him. These are moments that we hope will pay dividends down the road. We will look back on this and see what we grew from.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.