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It’s usually the Saturday game in the Ivy League back-to-backs when teams have to win ugly, but the Harvard men had to do so on Friday.
In a game in which both offenses struggled, the Crimson survived a game-tying triple at the buzzer to escape with a 56-53 victory over Brown in front of a Hawaiian shirt-wearing Aloha Night crowd at Lavietes Pavilion.
Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George ‘Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 63-53 win for Princeton men’s basketball (7-13, 3-2 Ivy) over Brown (7-11 1-4) at Jadwin Gym Saturday afternoon:
In a physical battle that featured 17 lead changes and 15 ties over 45 minutes, Brown men’s basketball opened up its largest lead of the game in the extra session and held on for an 86-80 victory over Columbia at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.
Mike Martin’s Bears (7-8, 1-2 Ivy League) picked up their first conference win in three tries, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions (12-5, 1-2) dropped their second straight Ancient Eight contest.
“Really, really pleased,” Martin told the ESPN+/NESN broadcast team after the game. “That was a hard, hard-fought game. They’re (Columbia) a heck of a team.”
Penn avoided the dreaded 0-2 start to Ivy play thanks to a pair of sterling performances from its senior leaders.
Wings Ethan Roberts and Michael Zanoni scored 28 and 20, respectively, in an 81-73 win over Brown at the Palestra. No other Quakers player scored more than nine. The win had the added benefit of snapping a four-game losing streak to the Bears (6-9, 0-2 Ivy).
Penn (8-7, 1-1) scored an efficient 1.2 points per possession against a good defensive team. The Quakers badly needed it, given their own defensive struggles. The Red and Blue managed to get to the halftime locker room tied despite an awful start, then seized control of the game with a 13-6 run out of the break.
Zanoni gave Penn a lead it would not surrender with an open three by the right sideline off a nice feed out of the lane by Roberts 50 seconds into the second half. Roberts later capped off the run with a wide-open three from the left wing thanks to a good screen from big man Augustus Gerhart with 16:17 to go in the half.
What did Penn fans learn from a solid win?