Harvard Win, Yale Loss Forces Playoff Game For NCAA Tournament Bid
By Gregory Hunt
It was a great Saturday night for the Harvard Crimson men's basketball team. In their regular season finale, the Crimson defeated the Brown Bears 72-62 at Lavietes Pavilion, while the Dartmouth Big Green upset the Yale Bulldogs 59-58 in a thriller at Leede Arena in Hanover, New Hampshire. Harvard (21-7 overall, 11-3 Ivy League) trailed first-place (Yale 22-9 overall, 11-3 Ivy League) by one game going into Saturday, but the night's results left the teams tied for the Ivy League championship. Now the teams we meet in a one-game playoff to determine the Ivy League's representative in this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The game will be held Saturday, March 14 at the Palestra in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The game time will be announce at a later date.
"We’ve talked about how (unpredictable) our league is,” said Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker. “Certainly we’re thrilled to call ourselves Ivy champs for (the 5th year) in a row. It’s an amazing accomplishment, and we’re very hopeful we’ll be ready to go for round three versus Yale.” Harvard split the season series with Yale, winning on the road 52-50 on February 7 before losing at home 62-52 on Friday.
Harvard trailed at halftime 28-27, but the Crimson started the second half with a 28-13 run that put the game away. Senior guard Wesley Saunders came up big, earning a double-double with 14 points and 10 assists. Senior forward Jonah Travis and senior center Kenyatta Smith added 12 points apiece. Senior forward Steve Moundou-Missi led the team in rebounding with 14 and he also added eight points. Junior guard Siyani Chambers came off the bench to lead the team in scoring with 15 points.
"There were a lot of emotions (Saturday night),” Saunders said. “We were talking on the bench a little bit about (Yale's game against Dartmouth), but we were also just thinking that we wanted to finish this game the right way, stay locked in on our task, and worry about the other stuff later."
That "other stuff" turned out to be a very dramatic win by Dartmouth. Trailing by one point with only 1.9 seconds remaining, Dartmouth senior guard John Golden lobbed an inbounds pass to senior forward Gabas Maldunas, who made the winning layup with 0.5 seconds remaining. Yale shot an impressive 61.9 percent from the field in the first half, but cooled off considerably in the second half. That, along with 13 steals by Dartmouth, allowed the Big Green to stay in the game.
Harvard will attempt to advance to its 4th consecutive NCAA Tournament by winning next weekend's playoff game. Yale, however, has not been to the Big Dance since 1962, when the Bulldogs lost in the first round to Wake Forest 92-82 in overtime. Yale's only other NCAA Tournament appearances happened in 1957 and 1949. Yale has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Yale also won shares of the Ivy League title in 1963 and 2002, but the Bulldogs lost tie-breaking playoff games in both of those seasons and thus did not advance the Big Dance.
Gregory Hunt is a Boston native and a life-long fan of the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics. He's also particularly fond of lacrosse, IndyCar racing and women's college basketball. He currently works for Examiner.com where he serves as the Senior Manager of Content and Media Access. He also writes for Examiner.com as the New England Patriots Examiner. His work can be found on Examiner.com.
