Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 66-53 win for Princeton (20-3, 8-2 Ivy) at Harvard (13-10, 4-6) Friday night that allowed the Tigers to keep a game behind Cornell in the Ivy League standings:
Malik Mack
Harvard men’s basketball escapes Columbia, 80-75, to sweep season series
Following a Friday night loss to Cornell, the dreaded bus trip from Ithaca to Morningside Heights and a nine-point deficit midway through the second half of Saturday night’s contest, Harvard men’s basketball stormed back to defeat Columbia by five, 80-75, and left Levien Gymnasium tied with the Lions in league play.
Both teams are in fourth place in the Ivy League, but the Crimson (13-9, 4-5 Ivy) swept the season series and presently hold the fourth seed for the Ivy League Tournament with only five games to go.
Cornell men’s basketball pulls away from Harvard in the second half to remain unbeaten in Ivy League play
After hard-fought wins for both teams on Friday night, Cornell men’s basketball looked to use its depth, while Harvard hoped its physical defense would be the difference in the second night of the opening weekend of back-to-back contests.
While the two teams slugged it out in the first half, the Big Red’s relentless roster wore down the Crimson over the final 20 minutes and came away with an 89-76 win in front of an Alumni Night crowd that featured NCAA president and Ivy Basketball Legend Charlie Baker.
Columbia/Harvard Friday night matchups: Crimson men and Lions women prevail
On the first night of the Ivy League’s opening back-to-back weekend, the Columbia women hosted Harvard, while the Crimson men welcomed the Lions.
When the dust cleared on Friday evening, both home teams held serve in competitive contests.
With the wins, the Lions women (14-5, 5-1 Ivy) claimed sole possession of second place and the Crimson men (11-7. 2-3) sat in a fourth-place tie with Brown.
The Harvard (11-8, 4-2) women dropped to a third-place tie with Brown, while the Lions (10-8, 1-4) men fell into a sixth-place tie with Dartmouth and Penn.
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 70-61 loss at Brown
Penn’s season looks all but over after a late offensive outage spelled doom in Providence, R.I.
The Quakers had a chance to draw with one point of Brown with 5:30 to play after junior forward Nick Spinoso hit an and-one layup over the Bears’ Malachi Ndur. Spinoso line-drive bricked the free-throw and the score remained 56-54 in favor of the Bears.
Penn didn’t make another shot from the field until just 45 seconds remained. At that point, the lead for the Bears had swelled to 11 points in what wound up being a 70-61 win for Brown (6-14, 2-3 Ivy).
It’s hard to see the Quakers responding on the second day of a road back-to-back at Yale, the current league co-leader. Penn (9-11, 1-4) may remain mathematically alive to reach Ivy Madness for a few weeks longer, but the hole this team has dug for itself may be too deep to overcome.
There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways for fans to hold onto as they pick through the wreckage of a season that started with such promise.
Yale men’s basketball tops Harvard, 78-65
Remember those Yale trips to hostile environments at Gonzaga and then-No. 2 Kansas in November and December?
Well, they certainly prepared the Bulldogs for a sold-out and raucous crowd at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday as they prevailed against Harvard, 78-65, for their sixth consecutive win and fifth straight over the Crimson.
Yale (13-6, 4-0 Ivy) got the win despite its highest scorer, sophomore frontcourt stalwart Danny Wolf (14.6) being held to a season low and second-leading scorer (13.5) junior guard Bez Mbeng managing only two points.
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 70-61 loss to Harvard
PHILADELPHIA — Penn picked a bad day to come out flat.
The Quakers dug themselves a 21-point deficit in the first half against Harvard thanks to stretches of stagnant offense and white-hot shooting from the Crimson. It proved to be too much to overcome in a 70-61 loss, despite a valiant comeback effort in the second half.
The loss isn’t fatal to Penn’s Ivy Madness hopes, but it ratchets up the pressure on the Quakers ahead of upcoming road games against Columbia and Brown. They’ll need to win one — if not both — of those games to feel good about their chances of reaching New York City.
There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways from Saturday. Penn (9-9, 1-2 Ivy) no-showed for 20 minutes against Harvard (10-6, 1-2) in front of a relatively full Palestra — including a packed student section. It wasn’t the type of product that will encourage those students to be repeat customers.
The Red and Blue have lots of questions to wrestle with ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Levien Gymnasium, starting with …
Brown men’s basketball holds on at Harvard, 74-72, for first Ivy League win
Harvard men’s basketball stormed back from a late second-half 16-point deficit to make it a one- possession game in the final 80 seconds, but Brown hung on for a 74-72 Martin Luther King Jr. Day victory at Lavietes Pavilion.
Brown’s first Ancient Eight win of the year puts Bruno (5-12, 1-1 Ivy) in a tie with Penn for fourth place, while winless Harvard (9-6, 0-2) finds itself at the bottom of the standings with Columbia and Dartmouth.
LISTEN: Postgame press conference following Princeton men’s basketball’s 89-58 win over Harvard
Ivy Hoops Online contributor George Clark brings us the audio of Princeton men’s basketball’s postgame press conference after the team’s 89-58 win over Harvard in their Ivy League opener at Jadwin Gym Saturday. Sophomore guard Xaivian Lee dominated with 33 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for the Tigers. Coach Mitch Henderson and Zach Martini joined Lee at the presser to reflect on Princeton’s win:
Harvard men’s basketball splits Bay State back-to-back
Malik Mack, the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Week and the conference’s leading scorer, put up a career-high 32 points as Harvard men’s basketball came back late at Massachusetts and outlasted the Minutemen for a 76-71 overtime win Friday evening.
With the hard-fought victory, Harvard started the year 4-0, the first time the team swept its opening quartet of games since the 2013-14 season. The streak ended early Saturday night as the Crimson fell to Boston College, 73-64.