Men's Basketball Sends Seniors Off in Style with Emphatic Win Over Brown

Senior co-captain Siyani Chambers, shown on Friday in a win against Yale, has spent two seasons as captain of the Crimson and is referred to as the "quarterback" of the team by coach Tommy Amaker. By Ryosuke Takashima

UPDATED: February 26, 2017 at 3:57 p.m.

You couldn’t have written it better for the Harvard men’s basketball team’s four seniors. Playing in their last game at Lavietes Pavilion, the Crimson’s four seniors wrote themselves a storybook ending against Brown on Saturday night, beating the Bears, 77-58.

It started with co-captain Corbin Miller. Off a pump fake the senior drained a long two to put the Crimson on the board. On the ensuing possession co-captain Siyani Chambers found classmate Zena Edosomwan for the emphatic dunk. Just over three minutes later, Chambers found senior Matt Fraschilla—making his second career start—in the corner for the three.

Starting its four seniors for the first time this season, Harvard (18-7, 10-2 Ivy League) jumped out to an 11-2 lead just over four minutes into Saturday’s game.

“That’s the way, if you want to write up a script you want it to flow like that,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “I was really excited to see that happen but I thought they did it within the flow. It wasn’t like they were looking to do it, and when it happens like that, that’s why it usually will happen.”

Chambers was the last of the four seniors to get on the scoreboard. The manner in which he did, however, was nothing short of spectacular. It began with a jumper from the elbow with just over six minutes left on the clock in the first half. Before three minutes had elapsed, though, the senior had scored 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting and assisted on the only other bucket scored over that span.

Senior co-captain Siyani Chambers had a game-high 19 points on Saturday night, a season-best for the Minnesota native. By Krystal K. Phu

He would go on to finish the game with a season-high 19 points and five assists.

For the Crimson, the early lead from its upperclassmen would only be the beginning of what became a runaway win against the visiting Brown Bears (12-16, 3-9).

Led by Edosomwan, Chambers, and freshman Seth Towns, Harvard jumped out to a 48-30 lead in the first half—tied for its highest first-half point total of the season. The trio combined for 29 of the Crimson’s 48 first period points. Edosomwan scored all of his eight in the frame and did so on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting from the field while adding seven rebounds.

Edosomwan wasn’t the only one who shot the ball well as Harvard shot 65.5 percent through the first frame—it’s best shooting performance this season before heading to the locker room. Through the period, the Crimson also shot 67 percent from deep while assisting on 14 plays.

“We want to play that way all the time no matter what defense or who we’re playing,” Amaker said. “We had 18 assists last night and we had 14 at the half tonight....We shared it, we found the open guy.”

While the first half was headlined by Harvard’s seniors, the game as a whole was perhaps one of the Crimson’s best all-around efforts of the season. In total, 13 Harvard players saw the floor with 10 finding their way onto the scoreboard. No Crimson player scored more than 20, but six scored six or more.

Freshman Justin Bassey finds classmate Chris Lewis in the paint against Brown. Lewis finished with five points and eight boards off the bench. By Krystal K. Phu

Though the Harvard offense slowed in the second half, the Crimson’s defense grounded Brown’s to a halt. In the second half the Brown Bears were held to 28 points on 9-of-27 shooting from the field and 0-of-11 from deep. Coming into the game, Brown’s was averaging 75 points per game—the best mark overall on the season within the conference.

“Were very deep on the bench, when we sub guys in we don’t drop, we don’t lose anything,” Chambers said. “That really allows us to keep our pace up on offense and defense and it gives us that advantage to, in our opinion, wear teams down on the defensive end. We grind and then we can sub in five or six new guys.”

Edosomwan finished the game with eight points and 11 rebounds while Towns added 16 and eight boards.

“It was a great team win,” Chambers said. “We did what we wanted to do. What I would say is it was very enjoyable to be able to be out there with those guys. We’ve been here a long time, we’ve seen a lot of things, done a lot of things, and to be able to spend that time on the floor together it was great. But that wouldn’t have meant anything to us if we didn’t do what we were supposed to do so I think it means a lot more to us that we were able to play how we played no matter of who was on the floor and that we were able to come out with a victory against a tough team.”

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at troy.boccelli@thecrimson.com