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HANOVER, N.H. – For those of us who saw Harvard men’s basketball dominate the Ivy League (and make a big mark on the national stage) for most of the 2010s, it’s somewhat unfathomable to point out that the Crimson have not been part of Ivy Madness since 2019.
Prolific production from a trio of Harvard guards, Robert Hinton, Tey Barbour and Chandler Pigge, neutralized a monster 30-point effort from senior forward Landon Lewis and propelled the Crimson men to a 69-59 victory over Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Friday evening.
With the win, Harvard (11-9, 4-2 Ivy) claimed sole possession of second place through the first six conference games of the 2026 season, while Bruno (1-5, 7-12) remained at the bottom of the Ancient Eight.
In an action-packed contest that turned into a battle between the brothers Hinton, it was Cornell and older brother Adam prevailing over Harvard and younger brother Robert, 86-79, at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday afternoon.
“If you can’t get up for playing your younger brother …” the senior guard from Hollywood Hills, Calif. told ESPN+ after the game. “We keep track for bragging rights for whose got more wins. I’m up 2-1 [in head-to-head matchups] right now. I’ve got one more win on my best friend [Harvard senior guard] Chandler [Pigge] as well.”
After going winless in their first three Ancient Eight contests, the Big Red (9-9, 2-3 Ivy) won their second straight road contest and move into a three-way tie for fifth place with Columbia and Penn. The Crimson (10-9, 3-2), however, ended a three-game winning streak and dropped to their own three-way tie for second with Dartmouth and Princeton.
Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps an 87-80 loss in overtime for Princeton men’s basketball (6-12, 2-1 Ivy) at Harvard (9-8, 2-1) Saturday:
Harvard men’s basketball jumped out to an 11-2 lead before the first media timeout and never looked back, as the Crimson notched a 79-54 wire-to-wire win over Columbia at Levien Gymnasium Saturday afternoon.
“I thought it was a tremendous effort from start to finish from our guys,” coach Tommy Amaker told Harvard Athletics. “It really was defensively. We had energy. We got the stops. We were able to get out and play from ahead. We were able to play a fun style early, which makes you get confidence quickly. On the road, that is so critical.”
Amaker’s squad improved to 1-1 in Ivy play and 8-8 on the season, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions, which lost their first home game of the 2025-26 campaign, dropped to 1-1 in the Ancient Eight and 12-4 for the year.
Harvard men’s basketball traveled south to Queens to visit St. John’s on Wednesday night and went back north a few hours later with an 85-59 defeat to the Red Storm.
With one game left in the nonconference schedule, Tommy Amaker’s squad fell to 6-7 on the season, while Rick Pitino’s group ended its out-of-conference slate and improved to 8-4 (1-0 Big East).
UNCASVILLE, Conn. – As you would expect, the Harvard men’s basketball pregame hype video played just before its starting lineup is announced includes clips from both its 2013 and 2014 NCAA Tournament victories.
But it also includes one from the 2015 Ivy League playoff, a grinding win over Yale at The Palestra after the Bulldogs lost on the last day of the regular season and the two rivals finished the season tied. Although they would get edged 67-65 by North Carolina to prevent its third straight season with a NCAA win the next week, it was the culmination of four straight NCAA Tournament berths and six straight 20-win campaigns.
The 2025-26 Ivy men’s basketball season tips off Friday, so it’s time for Ivy Hoops Online’s preseason poll – not to be confused with the Ivy League-released media preseason poll. Here’s how our contributors collectively predict the league will shake out, with select observations from some of them:
Despite missing out on the Ivy League tournament, the Harvard men finished the season on a high note, adding a 66-58 defeat of third-place Dartmouth to last week’s upset of regular-season champion Yale.
The Saturday matinee victory at Lavietes Pavilion, coupled with Brown’s defeat to the Elis, leaves the Crimson (12-15, 7-7 Ivy) in fifth place, one game ahead of the Bears and only one game away from a three-way tie for third with the Big Green and Princeton.
Despite the disappointing result, Dartmouth (14-13, 8-6) can hang its hat on an incredibly successful regular season, one in which the team bettered its eighth-place position in the league’s preseason media poll and earned its first appearance in Ivy Madness.
It was Yale-Harvard, so ignore the records. The Crimson ended Yale’s 13-game winning streak, 74-69, before a crowd of 1,636 at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday, handing the visitors their first loss in Ivy League play.
“I thought they had a really good game plan,” coach James Jones said. “Hopefully we can take this as a learning tool going into our last game (at Brown) and the Ivy tournament.”