Someone had to be a hero. It turned out to be Ashley Chea.
With Harvard and Princeton knotted at 50 and only 3.7 seconds left on the clock Saturday at Jadwin Gym, Princeton’s sharpshooter guard took an inbounds pass from Skye Belker just beyond the three-point line and was immediately smothered by Harvard’s star guard, Harmoni Turner.
Chea faked a handoff and then spun like a twister to her left to separate from Turner. With one tick remaining, Chea rose up and let loose a long jump shot as the horn sounded. The release was clean as Princeton coach Carla Berube leaned in from the sideline, willing the shot forward.
The ball swished through the net as Chea was mobbed by her jubilant teammates.
“I don’t think that they were expecting that play,” Chea told the ESPN+ broadcast crew after the game. “It was a great play call [by] my coaches . . . I think that they . . . know that every player on the floor can finish.”
This much anticipated matchup between Princeton and Harvard lived up to the hype. And then some.
The game was an epic clash of two elite defenses who simply would not allow anyone to get on track.
That is, except for Elena Rodriguez.
The Harvard senior forward was the best player on the court, leading all scorers with 22 points on 11-for-18 shooting in a losing cause.
And yet when the game was on the line, Rodriguez came up agonizingly short.
The Crimson had just gotten a crucial stop to earn possession and a chance to win the game on what was supposed to be the last shot of the contest.
Conventional wisdom dictated that Turner would take the final shot for Harvard. After all, the senior guard came into the contest averaging 20.7 points per game, which ranked first in the Ivy League and 13th-highest in the nation.
But Harvard coach Carrie Moore apparently assessed the Rodriguez provided the Crimson with a better matchup and opportunity to score the game-winning basket.
The fact that Moore made that assessment is a testament to the outstanding defense that Princeton guard Olivia Hutcherson played on Turner throughout the game.
Hutcherson didn’t do anything fancy in guarding Turner. She simply kept her body in front of Turner, held her arms out high and long, and did an excellent job fighting through ball screens to prevent Turner from getting clear lanes to the hoop.
As a result of Hutcherson’s efforts, Princeton succeeded in limiting Turner’s production. The First Team All-Ivy selection from a year ago labored hard to tally 15 points, but they came on 5-for-18 shooting from the field, including 0-for-4 from beyond the arc.
So with 23.8 seconds to go and the game tied at 50, the play designed after a timeout called not for Turner to go aggressively to the basket, but instead for Rodriquez to get the ball in the block and to make a play in the paint.
At first, the play went as intended. Turner received the inbounds pass and set up at the top of the key with the rest of her teammates spread outside of the lane.
With Hutcherson crouching in front of her, arms spread wide, Turner decided not to drive and instead passed the ball to Rodriguez. Rodriquez in turn passed the ball and then cut through the paint to the right post.
But guess who switched assignments and followed Rodriguez into the post? Hutcherson. The 5-foot-11 sophomore from Johns Creek, Ga. used her body to push the 6-foot-2 Rodriguez outside the paint, making it difficult for Rodriguez to get a good angle for making a move to the basket.
Nevertheless, with the clock ticking down, Rodriguez spun to her left while elbowing Hutcherson away from the basket. No foul was called and with her path cleared, Rodriquez went up for what she hoped would be a game-winning layup.
But with all of this commotion, Princeton’s second line of defense had time to arrive in the form of 6-foot-center Parker Hill. Hill stretched out her long arms and got a piece of Rodriguez’s shot (and, as replays showed, a piece of her hand) to prevent the basket.
The officials allowed play to go on as they had done a moment earlier and Hill got tied up with the ball on the floor. The possession arrow pointed toward Princeton with 3.7 seconds left on the clock.
Princeton immediately called timeout to set up Chea’s game-winning shot.
And just like that, Harvard’s magical season met a moment of sobriety. The loss snapped Harvard’s 10-game winning streak and wrecked any chance the Crimson had of cracking the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time in program history when the next poll is released on Monday. Coming into the weekend, the Crimson carried a putative ranking of 29 with 10 votes in the most recent AP Top 25 poll.
The loss also prevented the Crimson from gaining a quadrant one win and likely will cost Harvard a few slots in the NET rankings. Coming into the contest, Harvard had a NET ranking of 36, highest in the Ivy League. Princeton, on the other hand, will likely move up from its current NET ranking of 44.
The game started well for the visitors as they forced a turnover and then immediately scored the first basket of the game on a layup by Lydia Chatira. With that early score, Harvard snapped Princeton’s four-game streak of never trailing.
The Crimson lead stretched to 6-0 when Rodriguez tallied two consecutive layups over Parker Hill.
Meanwhile, Princeton struggled in the early going to handle Harvard’s pressure. The Tigers turned the ball over twice in their first four possessions and didn’t get on the scoreboard until Hill deposited a layup off a great entry pass from Belker.
But even while Harvard’s press clearly bothered the Tigers, the Crimson couldn’t capitalize because of their own difficulties handling the ball. Harvard ended up turning the ball over four times in the first quarter, the same number as the Tigers, as Princeton gradually found its footing. The Tigers led 15-14 at the end of the first stanza.
In the second quarter, the Tigers stretched their lead as Harvard struggled mightily to make shots. Fadima Tall fought through traffic in the paint to score a layup to put the Tigers ahead by three, 19-16, with 7:30 to play in the first half.
Although Tall had her moments in this game, she mostly struggled to get her game on track, scoring eight points on 3-for-11 shooting. However, the sophomore swing player made her mark on the boards, grabbing nine rebounds, which tied Turner for a game high.
Meanwhile, the Crimson went cold. Over a nearly seven-minute stretch, Harvard missed eight consecutive shots and turned the ball over four times.
The Tigers took a 25-18 lead into the intermission after holding Harvard to only four points in the second quarter.
The Tigers were led by Hutcherson, Hill and Tall, who each tallied six points in the first half. Harvard was paced by five points from Turner. But the real story of the first half was Harvard’s poor shooting. The Crimson made only eight out of 28 attempted shots for a woeful shooting percentage of 28.6%. In contrast, the Tigers made 12 of 24 shots for 50% shooting.
In the third quarter, the Tigers expanded their lead with Fadima Tall hitting a signature moonshot trey right out of the gate to give the Tigers their first double-digit lead of the game, 28-18.
But Turner finally started to find her range, hitting two jumpers and two free throws to pull the Crimson to within five by the end of the quarter, 39-34.
In the fourth quarter, the Crimson steadily gained momentum, pulling even with the Tigers three times before finally grabbing a tenuous 50-48 lead on a Rodriguez layup at the 2:17 mark.
But moments later, Turner committed a silly foul on Belker in an overly aggressive attempt to pressure the sophomore guard as she was attempting to dribble the ball up court. Belker, who notoriously missed potentially game-winning free throws at Utah, calmly swished both free throws to knot the game at 50 with just over two minutes to play.
Belker finished the game with 10 points to lead Princeton, along with Hutcherson, who also tallied 10 points. Belker played courageously on a bum ankle that she injured in practice two weeks ago and tweaked again last weekend in Princeton’s win over Cornell.
In the last two minutes, both teams failed to execute until Chea hit her game-winning buzzer-beater.
Although Chea will rightfully be regarded as the hero of this game with her epic buzzer-beater, the unsung hero was Hutcherson who not only brilliantly defended Turner but also contributed a career-high 10 points along with four rebounds.
“I think that for me, my defense always really fuels my offense,” Hutcherson told reporters after the game. “So guarding Harmoni was really tough, but I think that that was giving me the momentum that I needed to just get to my spots, be there for my teammates, if they’re getting trapped.”
With the win, Princeton improved to 11-4 (2-0 Ivy) while Harvard dropped to 12-2 (1-1).
The Tigers have now won 26 consecutive games at home, the third-longest streak in the nation. The Tigers will complete a seven-game home game stand with a tilt next Saturday against Dartmouth at Jadwin Gym.
Harvard returns home to take on the Brown Bears next Saturday at Lavietes Pavilion.