Behind a career high 31-point performance from sophomore forward Thomas Batties II, the Harvard men cruised to an 87-75 victory over visiting Columbia at Lavietes Pavilion on Saturday night.
The win gave head coach Tommy Amaker his 301st as head coach at Cambridge and, coupled with a 75-73 triumph over Cornell on Friday night, a weekend sweep of the Empire State Ivies. The Crimson (9-13, 4-5 Ivy) finish the weekend where it started, in fifth place in the conference, only one game out of the running for the Ivy Tournament.
The Lions (12-10, 1-8), which lost to Dartmouth by 22 points the previous evening, have been in the loss column for nine of its last ten contests, including five of six since leading scorer Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa went down to an injury. Jim Engles’ squad heads back to New York City in sole possession of last place.
The teams were matched evenly over the first five minutes with Columbia holding a slim 13-12 lead before Harvard senior guard Evan Nelson hit a three-pointer, a tip-in and jumper to put the Crimson up 19-13.
Coming out of an Amaker-called timeout with 4:47 left in the half, Harvard got a jumper from first-year Robert Hinton and a triple from Batties to stretch a 34-27 advantage to 39-27.
When the buzzer sounded the home team was still up 12, 44-32.
The Crimson were on fire in the opening frame, hitting 7-of-9 (78%) three pointers and 10-of-15 (67%) from two, with Batties notching 15 points on a perfect 6-for-6 effort from the field. While the bigger Columbia lineup held a ten-point advantage in the paint, the smaller Harvard squad hounded the Lions on the three-point line and held the visitors to a paltry 2-for-8 (25%) effort.
Columbia’s offense rebounded at the start of the second half, hitting eight of its first 10 shots, including a 3-for-3 effort from beyond the arc. Unfortunately, Harvard matched the Lions eight buckets and three triples, while also adding a free throw to stretch its lead to 13.
By time Batties successfully completed an old-fashioned three-pointer at the 11:36 mark, the Crimson’s lead opened to a game-high 17, 69-52.
The Lions made one last run late in the half, with junior guard Kenny Noland’s right baseline three getting Columbia within 11 with just over 1:13 to go, but Batties made two free throws on the next possession to put the game away.
On the hot shooting night, Harvard made 63% from two, 55% (11-for-20) from three and 88% (14-for-16) from the free throw line, while the defense grabbed nine more rebounds and held Columbia to 53% from inside the arc, 33% (6-for-18) from downtown and 75% (3-for-4).
Batties, whose previous career high of 21 was achieved on Friday night, ended up with 31 points on 80% shooting, seven rebounds, three assists and three blocks. Senior guard Louis Lesmond added 17 points, including a 4-for-7 performance from three, five rebounds and four assists.
The Crimson had two other scorers in double figures with Nelson adding 12 points (four rebounds and six assists) and Hinton putting up 11.
Junior forward Blair Thompson put up 19 points (67% shooting) and Noland contributed 16 in the loss.
Next up for Harvard is a trip south against third-place Princeton (16-8, 5-4) on Friday, followed by seventh-placed Penn (6-16, 2-7), while Columbia hopes to salvage its season during visits to fifth-place Brown (12-10, 4-5) and first-place Yale (16-6, 9-0).