Men's Basketball Returns to Cambridge to Face Cornell and Columbia

Basketball coaches worry. Concern might as well be in the job description, right between recruiting and game planning. It’s no different for Harvard men’s basketball coach Tommy Amaker. And over the last week, he has had plenty to worry about.

For one, there was the back-and-forth battle with bottom-dwelling Brown Friday. Amaker needed a herculean effort—and then a herculean second effort—from his best player to even get that game into overtime. The Crimson eventually pulled a win out, 76-74. But that wasn’t the game everybody was fretting over.

The next night, Harvard traveled to face Ivy-leading Yale. Amaker had to worry about his team’s energy and composure, an Ivy League Player of the Year candidate dressed in blue, and plenty more as the Crimson hung on for a 52-50 win.

All his worrying paid off with a huge weekend for Harvard—one that vaulted it back into first place in the league.

But causes for concern keep coming.  Soon after the team got back to Cambridge, the Crimson coaches scheduled extended activities for Sunday. Players got medical treatment and had a team lift and a team stretch. There was also film study—a Sunday rarity—as Mother Nature threatened Monday’s schedule.

“Thank goodness,” Amaker said Wednesday, recalling the prescient decision to autopsy the Brown and Yale games before the ensuing snowstorm canceled Monday’s practice.

What Amaker and his team saw on tape only brought more things to worry about. This weekend, Harvard will face the best offense and the best defense it will see in league play, Amaker said Wednesday.

Such is life in the Ancient Eight.

Friday, Columbia (11-9, 3-3) comes to the Lavietes Pavilion. The Lions are third in the standings with the third-highest margin of victory and the fourth-best KenPom score. Paper says they are the toughest test for Harvard outside of Yale. History agrees.

Columbia pushed the Crimson to double overtime in New York last season and beat them by 15 the year before that.

“They have played exceptionally well against us—beaten us—and we have played some incredibly hard-fought, entertaining games against them,” Amaker said. “We’ve been in those kinds of situations where you have to be a little fortunate to come out on top.”

This year, Maodo Lo, the league’s fourth most prolific three-point maker and second highest scorer, leads the Lions. The team as a whole is second in the conference in three-pointers made, thanks largely to Lo, Steve Frankoski, and Kyle Castlin. Those three will try to stretch Harvard’s defense to limit the Crimson’s advantage down low.

“It’s never fun playing against them,” senior forward Jonah Travis said. “They are always going to give you their best punch and you know it’s always going to be a dogfight.”

Saturday, Cornell (11-11, 3-3) brings another set of concerns to Cambridge. The Big Red leads the league in field goal defense and is third in points allowed per game. Cornell has posted those numbers thanks to a pressing defense that has forced 13 turnovers per game and a back line that leads the Ivies in blocks per game.

“That’s what we are worried about,” Amaker said of the Big Red press. “Some people have taken some chances [pressing us] and we haven’t handled it as well as we would have liked.”

Early in the year, for instance, Harvard turned the ball over 24 times and lost to a pressing Holy Cross squad. Still, Amaker said, he’d be glad to see Cornell stretch its defense and get aggressive.

“For a [Harvard] team that has struggled to score a little bit,” he said, breaking the press can lead to easy buckets.

Instead, one of Amaker’s biggest concerns is that his team isn’t worrying enough.

After the team’s loss to Dartmouth, the seniors rallied the group, the Crimson showed its toughness, and the players ran off four straight road victories.

Now they return home and find themselves fully healthy for the first time all year. That might seem like a good position to be in, but for a basketball coach, it’s just the cause of another worry.

“One of my biggest fears it that because we are coming home after being on the road for two weekends, are you ready to ‘phew?’—to have that kind of attitude and think because you’re home it’s supposed to happen for you,” Amaker said. “That’s not the way it works.”

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com.