Dominant third quarter propels Harvard women’s basketball past Holy Cross

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Down two at the half, the Harvard women used a 17-0 third quarter to put away Holy Cross 61-46 on Wednesday evening at Lavietes Pavilion.

The Crimson’s victory was even more impressive given the fact that the team was missing two starters and three of its top six rotation players due to injuries, as well as having its travel scheduled delayed by 10 to 12 hours due to connecting flight problems after the win at Arkansas on Sunday.

The win brought Carrie Moore’s squad back to the .500 level at 5-5 on the year, while the Crusaders fell to 3-5.

A few thoughts as Harvard starts December with its first two-game winning streak of the season:

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Another fourth-quarter rally lifts Princeton women’s basketball past Seton Hall

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Old habits die hard.

On Tuesday night at Jadwin Gymnasium, the Princeton women’s basketball team used yet another fourth-quarter comeback, its sixth of the season, to hold off the Seton Hall Pirates, 80-76, for its sixth win a row.

This time, the Tigers (8-1) rallied twice to overcome deficits, including a 14-point second-quarter hole and a five-point gap in the final stanza to hand the Pirates (4-1) their first setback of the season.

The win capped a three-game sweep by Princeton of BIG EAST teams for the second straight year.

The 24th meeting between Princeton and Seton Hall was an instant classic.

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Princeton men’s basketball falls to Saint Joseph’s in rock fight

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Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 60-58 loss for Princeton men’s basketball (3-7) to Saint Joseph’s (4-3) Sunday in Trenton, N.J.:

Columbia women’s basketball goes 1–2 against tough Cancun Challenge competition

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At the Cancun Challenge, Columbia women’s basketball played much improved basketball against quality opponents, as junior guard and reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Riley Weiss rounded into midseason shape.

Prior to the tournament, Weiss averaged 16.2 points per game. In these three games, she averaged over 27, notably shooting 48.3% overall and 42.3% from three, both numbers higher than any previous single game.

In three days of play, the Lions (4-4) lost a close shootout to Kansas State (5–3), 95–92; powered past perennial mid-major power South Dakota State (6–2), 80–67; and lost 80–63 against Courtney Banghart-led No. 12 North Carolina (8–1).

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Harvard women’s basketball wins at Arkansas for first-ever SEC victory

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Harvard women’s basketball, continuing to use a depleted roster, bounced back from two defeats at the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship before Thanksgiving to take down Arkansas 69-51 on Nolan Richardson Court in Fayetteville Sunday.

With the victory, the Crimson improved to 4-5 on the season, while the Razorbacks dropped its first home game in six attempts and dropped to 7-2. 

Sunday afternoon’s contest was put on the schedule as a homecoming for Gabby Anderson, who was born in the Natural State and whose mother played for Arkansas in the late 1990s. But the celebration of the program’s first-ever win over an SEC opponent was tempered by the loss of the senior guard due to a left knee injury early in the second quarter. 

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s Cathedral Classic loss to Hofstra

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Playing its third game in a three-day span, Penn men’s basketball simply ran out of gas against one of the better teams it will face this season.

Penn shot a grisly 32% from the field in a 77-60 home loss to Hofstra that rounded out the fourth edition of the Cathedral Classic.

Penn (5-3) managed to hold a two-point halftime lead against the Pride (5-3) that disappeared within the first minute of the second frame. Hofstra drained some shots and generated a modicum of offensive flow, while the Red and Blue struggled to play with pace and generate open looks.

Any chance the Quakers had at a comeback died shortly after the under-eight media timeout. Sophomore forward Lucas Lueth missed a free throw that would have pulled Penn within nine of Hofstra. Though senior wing Ethan Roberts corralled the offensive rebound, the Quakers couldn’t get a shot off and committed a shot clock violation.

At the other end of the floor, Penn got an initial stop, but Hofstra’s German Plotnikov drained a killer three after an offensive rebound. What could have been a four-point possession wound up as a three-point swing in the opposite direction.

The Quakers will surely be watching Monday night’s contest between Temple and Villanova to find out their opponent in the Big 5 title game next Saturday. Until then, they’ll be thinking about how …

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Princeton women’s basketball and Taylor Charles swat away DePaul for fifth straight win

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On a Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Taylor Charles served up a record-tying seven helpings of stuffing as the Princeton women’s basketball team rolled over the DePaul Blue Demons, 71-41, in a Sunday matinee at Jadwin Gymnasium.

Getting her first start of the season, Charles made the most of her opportunity.

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Yale men’s basketball notches tough road win over Vermont

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The last time Yale men’s basketball defeated Vermont in Burlington, Barack Obama was president. (It was 2014.)

Burlington was a house of horrors for Yale two years ago, when a Vermont four-point play with .7 seconds left downed the visitors.

But Yale exorcised those demons with a tough 77-74 victory over the Catamounts Sunday in a heavyweight mid-major battle.

“We just played together and stuck in there,” Yale coach James Jones said. “Vermont is a really good team. Just makes you feel good about us going forward.”

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball pulling out Cathedral Classic win over La Salle

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PHILADELPHIA — The earliest chapters of Penn’s season are still being written, but it’s going to be pretty hard to top what the Quakers put on the page Saturday at the Palestra.

Led by a 29-point effort from junior forward TJ Power, Penn erased a 15-point deficit in the second half and withstood a frenetic final few seconds in a 73-71 triumph over Big 5 rival La Salle.

The Quakers (5-2, 3-0 Big 5) used a string of threes and fadeaway jumpers from Power to draw close to the Explorers (3-5, 0-3), then finally drew ahead for good after Power one-touched a pass on a runout to an open Ethan Roberts for a corner three with 3:56 to go.

La Salle got a decent look at a game-tying shot in the dying moments of the game, but freshman big Dalton Scantlebury contested a baseline jumper from the Explorers’ Josiah Harris and Power got in the mix on the glass to ensure La Salle had no chance at a buzzer-beating putback.

Penn is now a win over Hofstra away from a clean sweep of its own in-house multi-team event, the Cathedral Classic. Saturday’s win followed a somewhat similar script to the Quakers’ Friday triumph over Merrimack, mostly through how …

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s Cathedral Classic win over Merrimack

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Penn started its three-day homestand for the Cathedral Classic off right Friday with a convincing 77-65 win over Merrimack — even if it didn’t play out the way Quakers fans might have expected.

The Quakers’ (4-2) offense looked stagnant and disjointed for long stretches, clearly disrupted by the Warriors’ (2-5) aggressive 2-3 zone. Instead of folding, though, the Quakers found another way to win.

Instead of relying on finesse and outside shooting, Penn won by exploiting a size mismatch and physically overpowering Merrimack. The Warriors are one of the shortest teams in Division I, with no rotation player standing taller than 6-foot-8.

The Quakers responded by scoring 50 points in the paint and a plud-14 rebound margin. They took control of the game with a 10-0 run late in the first which flipped a 30-25 deficit into a 35-30 edge; an inside finish from forward TJ Power off a slick feed from fellow big Augustus Gerhart gave Penn the lead for good.

What could Quakers fans take away from a successful afternoon?

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