Men's Basketball Looks to Pick Up Two Road Wins

Though Harvard men’s basketball coach Tommy Amaker was rooting for the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI, when seeing the Atlanta Falcons final quarter collapse, he couldn’t help but think of his own team just a day before.

While the Crimson never had a lead over Princeton equivalent to the 28-3 margin the Falcons put up, Amaker’s team played themselves into a game that was theirs to lose. And lose it, they did.

“It’s amazing for the Pats, but then the Falcons—how do you get over that?” Amaker said. “It’s the only thing that’s starting to make me feel a little bit better about our game. That’s probably worse. I know it’s worse.”

Several little mistakes put the Tigers in a position to regain the lead in the waning seconds, but Princeton guard Steven Cook capped the night off with a layup off of an offensive rebound with 2.9 seconds on the clock to give his team a 57-56 win. Unlike the Falcons, however, Amaker’s team gets a chance to put the game in the past and play again.

“As we found out after the Princeton game, the sun still comes up,” Amaker added. “Life goes on. Onward and upward hopefully.”

This weekend, Harvard (12-7, 4-2 Ivy League) hits the road to face Brown (11-11, 2-4) on Friday night and Yale (13-6, 5-1) on Saturday in search of its first Ivy weekend sweep.

It has been tough going recently for Harvard athletics against Yale. During the 2015-2016 season, the men’s basketball team lost both matchups against Yale, who eventually claimed the Ivy League Title—the first time in six years that the banner had not ended up in Cambridge. On the ice, men’s hockey is 0-1-2 in its last three meetings with the Bulldogs. No loss stung as much as The Game, however, when Yale stole a win from Harvard football for the first time in 10 years.

But for senior co-captain Siyani Chambers, Saturday night’s game will be the first time he has faced the New Haven foes since he and the 2014-2015 squad defeated Yale in a one-game playoff for the Ivy League’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

With a trip to March Madness on the line, then junior co-captain Chambers was on the floor for 38 minutes, tallying seven points and four assists in Harvard’s eventual 53-51 win.

But when Chambers takes the floor this time against Yale, he will be among very different faces. Of Harvard’s 20-player roster, only seniors Zena Edosomwan and co-captain Corbin Miller played in the Ivy League playoff in 2015, and four others were also on the roster.

Yale has also changed from the roster that won the Ivy title. After graduating Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears and All-Ivy First Team forward Brandon Sherrod, and losing junior guard Makai Mason to a season ending injury, Bulldogs coach James Jones has had to look to younger players such as freshmen Miye Oni—who leads the team in points and rebounds per game with 13.2 and 7.2, respectively— and Jordan Bruner, who ranks second in the Ivy League in field goal percentage just behind the Crimson’s Chris Lewis.

In addition to threatening personnel, Yale has been lights out in its home gym, Lee Amphitheater, going two years without a home loss. But for Chambers, his mind is first on the team’s trip to Providence.

“Going to Yale is always a big one for us because it’s a rivalry game, but we can’t look past Brown,” Chambers said. “They are a really good team and they are doing some really good things. Like every other weekend in the Ivy League, it’s a really big weekend.”

The Bears are led by senior Steven Spieth, who ranks third in the Ancient Eight with 16.2 points per game. Playing the four position, but with range, Spieth provides matchup problems for opponents.

Harvard has done well in stopping the stretch-four player in Ivy play this year, preventing Dartmouth’s Evan Boudreaux and Penn’s A.J. Brodeur from getting in a scoring rhythm.

The Bears currently hold the top-scoring offense in the Ancient Eight, while the Crimson has tended to lag out of the gates and find itself playing from behind.

The team avoided the slow start against Princeton, and will need to do so again when facing Brown’s high-powered offense.

“We just have to get down to basics and fundamentals,” Chambers said. “Defensively [we’re] trying to lock in, trying to correct some of the mistakes that were made last game so they don’t happen again.”

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