Men's Basketball Drops First Game of New Year, 65-62, to Vermont

After cutting an 11-point deficit to three with just under two minutes to go, the Harvard men’s basketball team had a chance to tie the game late.

With two seconds left on the clock, freshman guard Corey Johnson found the ball in his hands. He had hit a nearly identical shot in pre-game warmups–a deep three from dead center. After receiving the ball from junior guard Corbin Miller, Johnson found an opening and let the ball go. But as the buzzer sounded and the backboard glowed red, Johnson’s shot clanked off the rim to send the Crimson (6-8) to a 65-62 defeat to Vermont (8-7), its first loss of 2016.

“I know it’s been a brutal stretch for us with travel and the Diamond Head Classic,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “But we’re home and we [had] an opportunity to play against a quality team and I’m disappointed that we didn’t play better.”

Getting the lead to three itself required a furious comeback. With 5:32 left in the contest, a layup gave the Catamounts their largest lead of the game at 11. After Harvard cut it to six, Vermont pushed it to nine on a three by Ernie Duncan. Then, the Crimson mounted its comeback.

First, sophomore Chris Egi hit one of two from the charity stripe to cut the lead to eight. On Harvard’s next possession, senior Agunwa Okolie scored on a jumper to cut the lead to six. After forcing a Vermont turnover, junior Corbin Miller got the ball on his favorite spot on the floor, draining a three under duress in front of the Harvard bench.

Though Vermont did not score in the last four minutes, its defense shone. All day, the Catamounts played lockdown defense on Edosomwan, the Crimson’s leading scorer. Edosomwan was limited to eight points on only six shots from the field and fought against near constant double-teams.

“I’ve learned also when you get the double team there’s someone open and dump back in,” Edosomwan said. “But they did a really good job today and I think a big part of their gameplan was at least not letting me try to score at all, whether it was anytime I caught the ball or any place to not get the ball in my hands so they did a great job.”

The Crimson similarly struggled to generate offense in a 27-point first half. The team was dealt a major blow when starting point guard Tommy McCarthy went down with a knee injury, worsened when he would not return. Harvard, already thin at point guard after junior Matt Fraschilla tore his ACL earlier in the year, turned to Miller to run the offense when McCarthy left after just seven minutes.

“Corbin is a guy that settles our offense, settles our team,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “He’s a very respected guy in our program so you look at him as a leader and so handling the ball for us, running our team, being the quarterback comes natural in that regard.”

Sophomore Andre Chatfield, who has battled injuries of his own all season, saw limited action at the point to give Miller a brief respite. While Amaker said he did not expect Chatfield to have to step up as much as he did today, he praised the sophomore’s defensive contribution.

“I thought Dre really did a nice job for us defensively, which is what we need from him, to be active and to guard the ball,” Amaker said.

After trailing by just five at half, the Crimson was unable to take the lead in the second half. Twice Harvard went on a run to tie the game, but Vermont responded in both cases, taking advantage of 17 Harvard turnovers. On the day, the Catamounts had 23 points on Crimson giveaways.

Amaker said that he was disappointed with the team’s performance given its recent play. Before Sunday’s loss, Harvard had won four of its last five contests.

“A little bit of a setback for us obviously, kind of the way we’ve been playing,” Amaker said. “Give credit to Vermont, I mean they were very focused and I thought they played in a tough manner... We’re just disappointed and that’s what we’re discussing with our team, especially because we felt like we made some huge strides and had some great growth prior to today.”

—Staff writer Theresa C. Hebert can be reached at theresa.hebert@thecrimson.com.