“It’s Yale-Harvard. There is no other game like it.”
That quote from Yale men’s senior forward EJ Jarvis was spot on, and so was another:
“This was a must-win game.”
Yale got the win it needed Saturday night against archrival Harvard at John J. Lee Amphitheater to avoid its first 0-3 start in Ivy play since 1998-99, the season before James Jones took over the program as head coach.
Yale (11-5, 1-2 Ivy) held a 28-24 lead at the half on the heels of a great defensive effort, holding Harvard to 7-for-25 shooting from the field and 5-for-20 from three-point range.
“We did a really good job with our interior defense,” Jones said.
Yale raced out to a 35-27 lead, but Harvard (10-7, 1-2) answered with an 8-0 run which ended with a trey by sophomore guard Evan Nelson to grab a 39-36 lead.
Yale shot back with a 9-0 run to lead 48-39 after a nifty Jarvis lay-in.
The Bulldogs led 56-49 when Harvard junior guard Sam Silverstein hit a trey. Then the lead was cut to 56-54 off a steal by senior guard Idan Tretout.
That set up the play of the game.
Jarvis missed the front end of a one-and-one but followed it up with a monster block of Tretout with under 10 seconds remaining. Jarvis was then fouled and made two free throws to close out the scoring.
Yale led for more than 35 minutes.
”As usual, it was a hard-fought game between our team and their team,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “I was really proud of our team’s effort of battling and fighting to give us a chance to be in the game when we obviously shot the ball incredibly poorly, especially from three. Their toughness coming off of last night’s loss, you could see the difference in their play and sense of urgency. What a great game, a competitive game. Both teams fought hard to try to win.”
Junior forward Matt Knowling led Yale with 11 points. Senior guard/forward Chris Ledlum and Tretout each led Harvard with 15.
Yale’s next action comes at Cornell on Friday night. Harvard hosts Columbia Saturday afternoon.