In what may end up being the Ivy League game of the year, Harvard men’s basketball topped Yale, 67-65, on a 28-foot banked trey with under five seconds remaining by Harvard sophomore guard Tey Barbour before a raucous crowd of 2,425 at John J. Lee Amphitheater.
“Very disappointing loss for us. Hats off to Harvard,” Yale coach James Jones said after a long postgame talk with his team.
Yale has had a habit for falling behind in the first halves of games. The Bulldogs held a narrow 33-32 lead over Dartmouth last night but went on to win more comfortably, 83-68.
Not so Saturday night against an energized Harvard team coming off of a big road win at Brown.
Harvard played a packed-in 2-3 zone which frustrated the home team.
The Crimson closed the first half on a 15-7 run to take a 29-21 lead into intermission.
Yale was only 8-for-30 from the field in the half and only hit on one of nine three-point attempts despite leading the country in shooting percentage from that range.
Yale cut the deficit to 48-45 on a long distance junior guard Trevor Mullin triple off of an assist from sophomore forward Isaac Celiscar.
Harvard then went on an 8-0 run, keyed by a midrange jumper by sophomore guard Robert Hinton. Hinton finished with a game-high 26 points on 9-for-16 shooting.
A senior forward Nick Townsend lay-in with 56 seconds remaining gave Yale a 63-62 lead. Hinton made two free throws to put Harvard up 64-63 and another Townsend short-range shot put Yale up 65-64 with 21 seconds remaining.
The defeat spoiled a 21-point performance by Mullin, who shot 5-for-8 from long distance. Townsend posted 18 points.
“Trevor was terrific tonight,” Jones said. “He did a great job of keeping us in the game.”
Hinton led Harvard with 26 points.
Yale and Harvard now sit atop the League at 5-2. Harvard has won two straight against Yale, knocking off the Bulldogs on March 1 when they were 12-0 in Ivy play.
Yale hosts Brown at 7 p.m. on Friday. Harvard is at Dartmouth on Saturday at 5 p.m.
I have watched a number of Yale games this year and attended two in person. They seem to have a habit of getting off to a slow start as Richard points out. Against an lesser opponent they have put the pedal to the floor in the second half or late first half. But you cant spot a good team like Harvard 8 points . They made a valient comeback to pull even, but could never gain a signifcant lead. Harvard shot 47% from 3 point land and had 7 more attempts from the charity stripe.