Half the league was in action last night, and three of the four contests were either decided in the waning moments of regulation or in overtime. Let’s take a quick look back at an exciting evening of Ivy basketball.
Holy Cross 85, BROWN 79 F-OT
The Bears held the lead for most of the second half, including a 67-59 advantage with three minutes to go. The Crusaders scored the final eight points of the game as part of a 25-10 run that included almost the entire overtime period as well, as Holy Cross rallied for the win.
The turnovers finally caught up with Brown during the waning moments of regulation. Brown turned the ball over 19 times on 79 possessions (24 percent) for the game and on four of its last five possessions of the second half. In fact, if the Crusaders hadn’t missed four free throws in the last three minutes of the game, it’s entirely possible that they could have walked away with a win in regulation.
For the game, Holy Cross turned those 19 Brown turnovers into 23 points.
The Bears also have work to do on the offensive glass, grabbing just 17 percent of boards there. Brown is 320th nationally in offensive rebounding, and when combined with their 346th ranking in turnovers forced, the factors that led to the Bears’ downfall in this contest are hardly a surprise.
Yale 48, HARTFORD 46
The score looks uglier than the game ultimately was. The contest was played at an incredibly slow 51 possession pace, so the teams displayed only slightly below average efficiency offensively.
Alex Zampier once again put together an above-average, but not excellent stat line of 15 points on 13 shots, five rebounds and two assists. The standout performance came from Paul Nelson, whose 4-for-4 shooting and 10 point, 11 rebound showing, buoyed a Yale team that trailed for the first 30 minutes of the contest. The Bulldogs did get up as many as six with 2:30 to play, but a Hartford 7-1 run set up Michael Sands game-winning dunk with two ticks left.
While the offenses weren’t terrible, the free-throw shooting was. The two teams combined to go 13-for-31 from the line with Yale shooting 44 percent to Hartford’s 39 percent. On the night, 13 different players shot free throws and only three finished better than 50 percent from the stripe.
The Bulldogs did a great job on the defensive glass, grabbing 86 percent of the boards on that end.
Cornell 104, BUCKNELL 98 F-OT
The Big Red and Bison were on a 134 and 126 points per 100 possession pace, respectively, as both teams shot the ball with extreme precision last night at Sojka Pavilion.
Both teams posted an efficient field goal percentage of 61, and about the only place that either team did not shoot well from was Bucknell from the stripe (63 percent).
Cornell put on an impressive performance on the offensive glass, corralling 44 percent of those rebounds, led by Jeff Foote’s seven. Foote added 11 more boards on defense for 18 total and 28 points – season highs in both categories – for his third double-double of the season.
Ryan Wittman also had a season high in points with 25 on his second best shooting performance of the season (73 percent EFG).
HARVARD 85, Rice 64
Despite the sizeable margin, this game might qualify as the most bizarre of the night. Harvard turned the ball over on 28 percent of its possessions, shot just 4-for-12 from three and grabbed just five offensive rebounds and yet won remarkably easily.
All that can be overcome when you shoot 69 percent from inside the arc and convert 19-of-22 free throws. Keith Wright posted the second-most points of his career with 16 on 8-for-10 shooting in just 19 minutes.
Harvard posted 22 assists on 31 made baskets and had 13 steals and 10 blocks.
On the negative side, the freshmen, while spectacular at points, continued to make rookie mistakes, as Brandyn Curry and Dee Giger combined to turn the ball over eight times in 39 minutes, while Christian Webster added a couple more. Kyle Casey had a highlight-reel alley-oop but also picked up four fouls in just 15 minutes of action, giving him at least three fouls in each of his first seven games.
