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Harvard women’s basketball downs Dartmouth, 74-40

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Harvard and Dartmouth women’s basketball tip off at Leede Arena Saturday for what became a 74-40 win for the Crimson over the Big Green. (Ray Curren / Ivy Hoops Online)

HANOVER, N.H. – The Harvard women’s basketball team knew its Ivy League Tournament place was secure heading into Saturday’s regular season finale Saturday afternoon against Dartmouth.

But as much as they probably didn’t want to look too closely at it, the Crimson also knew their hopes of an NCAA Tournament at-large berth was in a very precarious spot, listed as one of the Last Four In or dreaded Last Four Out on most bracketologies in the last two weeks.

So, even though Dartmouth was banged up and coming in on an 11-game losing streak, Harvard left nothing to chance on Dartmouth’s Senior Day, using their pressure to dominate from the opening tip, eventually posting a 74-40 victory at Leede Arena.

“We just really wanted to finish the regular season on a high note,” Harvard coach Carrie Moore said. “We didn’t feel great about how we played last weekend, so we wanted to get back to how we know we can play, and I felt we did that, especially the upperclassmen who set the tone early.”

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A strong defensive effort propels Harvard men’s basketball to 66-58 victory over Dartmouth

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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.

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Solid second half lifts Harvard women’s basketball past Penn

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On Senior Night at Harvard, the seniors came through in a dominant second half Saturday to sail past the Penn women’s basketball team, 62-44.

Of course, it helps when your seniors include league-leading scorer Harmoni Turner and forward Elena Rodriguez. With two points from reserve forward Mona Zaric, the senior class came up just one point short of Penn’s total. Turner let loose for a double-double: 24 points from all over the court and 11 rebounds; Rodriguez had 17 points on 7-for-13 shooting.

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Harvard men’s basketball hands Yale its first Ivy League loss

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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.”

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Princeton women’s basketball rebounds on the road to sweep Harvard, 70-58

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Six days after having its 30-game home winning streak snapped by the Columbia Lions. Princeton women’s basketball hit the road and took out its frustrations on the Harvard Crimson, beating its host, 70-58, at Lavietes Pavilion Friday.

The win gave Princeton a two-game sweep of Harvard during the regular season, setting up a likely third clash in two weeks in the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament.

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Strong second-half defense propels Brown men’s basketball to 59-52 win at Harvard

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In an early Friday evening battle between fifth-place teams at Lavietes Pavilion, the Brown men’s basketball team held Harvard without a bucket for over nine minutes in the second half to help overcome an 11-point deficit and come away with a hard-fought 59-52 victory.

The result marks the eighth time in the last nine meetings between the two New England rivals that the visiting team came away with the win.

After all of the Ancient Eight’s contests were in the books for the evening, the Bears (14-11, 6-6 Ivy), which evened their season series with the Crimson (10-15, 5-7), sit alone in fifth place one game off the pace of Cornell, Dartmouth and Princeton. Harvard, meanwhile, is alone in sixth place with only two games left in the regular season.

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Assessing the Ivy women’s hoops race with three games left in the regular season

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Another eventful weekend of women’s hoops games has set the table for a dramatic conclusion to the Ivy League season. 

The Columbia Lions (19-5, 10-1 Ivy) seized control of the race for the regular season title with another come-from-behind win over the Princeton Tigers, 64-60, at Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday. The Lions completed a rare series sweep of the Tigers and put themselves in position to earn a third consecutive Ivy League title and the program’s first outright championship. 

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 79-78 overtime loss to Harvard

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Penn’s flickering postseason aspirations were officially snuffed out on Saturday night after the Quakers endured another heartbreaking loss, this time in overtime to Harvard at the Palestra, 79-78.

The Quakers (7-17, 3-8 Ivy) managed to lose despite having free-throw shooters heading to the line with a three-point lead twice in the final 11 seconds of regulation. But both junior wing Ethan Roberts and senior wing George Smith missed their one-and-one front ends.

Harvard (10-14, 5-6) forced overtime after Penn guard Sam Brown deflected a Crimson home run pass into the arms of senior guard Evan Nelson, who drained a contested three over Brown’s outstretched arms with a second to play.

The Crimson took the lead for good when freshman Robert Hinton converted two free throws with 26 seconds to play in overtime. Penn missed three game-winning shot attempts in the final 12 seconds of OT, with senior big man Nick Spinoso missing a desperation hook shot off the front rim just before the buzzer sounded.

Here’s what we learned from another devastating defeat:

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Harvard women’s basketball escapes Brown’s upset bid, 60-57

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Down one to Brown with 25 seconds to go and Harvard women’s basketball’s dream of an Ivy League regular season title slipping away, the Crimson’s Harmoni Turner drove straight down the lane for the go-ahead layup. Met by three Bears, the senior guard found an open Elena Rodriguez and the senior forward banked it in to put the Crimson up 58-57.

With no timeouts left for either team, junior guard Grace Arnolie pushed the ball up the right side for Bruno. Faced with her own triple-team, she dished it off to Olivia Young at the top of the arc. The sophomore guard quickly rifled the rock to senior center Gianna Aiello, who was wide open in front of the net.

After Rodriguez missed the steal, Aiello took a stutter step and definitively shot the ball against the backboard, hoping to put Bruno back on top, but it rattled off the rim and into Turner’s hands with less than five seconds left on the clock.

The All-Ivy guard, who is third in free throw percentage in the Ancient Eight, hit both free throws to put the game away for Harvard.

With the win, the Crimson (20-3, 9-2 Ivy) are tied for second in the conference with Princeton, one game away from Columbia, and the third team to clinch a spot in the Ivy League Tournament, which will be played on the same Pizzitola Sports Center court where they played on Saturday afternoon.

A victory over one of the top teams in the Ancient Eight would have given a huge boost to Brown’s Ivy Madness chances, but the loss dropped the Bears (10-14, 4-7) into fifth place, one game away from Penn.

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LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball tops Harvard, 76-71

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Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 76-71 win Friday for Princeton (17-8, 6-4 Ivy) over Harvard (9-14, 4-6) at Jadwin Gym:

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