At the intermission Beam led all scorers with14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, including 4-of-6from distance. Clemente was also hitting on allcylinders, as he entered the half with 11 pointson 5-of-7 shooting, including one from downtown.
"I had big guys on me all night, who probablyaren't used to covering guys who can shoot likeme," Clemente said. "So theydidn't really put their hands up on me when I wasoutside, and I got some good looks."
Hill, although not scoring, was effectivelyrunning the offense for Harvard, dishing out eightassists by the break, against only one turnover.
With his seventh assist in the game--a feed toBeam for a trey to give Harvard a 30-20 lead--Hillmoved into second place all time in the Ivy Leaguewith 578 career assists. This came a week afterHill became the all-time assist champion for theCrimson.
In the second half, things didn't come so easyfor the Crimson however, as the Brown pressure, aswell as the fast paced nature of the game, seemedto take its toll on Harvard.
The Crimson shot 60 percent from behind thethree-point arc in the first half on 6-of-10shooting. After the break, however, Harvard nettedjust one trey in seven attempts for a slim 14.3percent clip.
Brown, on the other hand, started to heat up.After shooting just 38.7 percent from the field inthe first, the Bears hit on 46.7 percent in thesecond, including 5-10 from three-point land.
Leading the way for Brown as usual wasRountree. He improved on his already solid firsthalf performance, by netting 16 more points afterthe intermission. Rountree finished the contestwith 27 points, on 11-of-21 shooting, to go alongwith seven rebounds.
"We knew it would be a challenge to cover[Rountree]," Sulivan said. "I thought Bill Ewingdid a pretty good job on him, though. Rountree isgoing to get his points, because he's as good ascorer as there is in the league."
Harvard, meanwhile begun showing signs offatigue, as its play was marred by poor shooting,poor ball-handling and just sloppy play overall.
Brown capitalized knotting the game at 45, but,led by some aggressive play on the offensiveboards, the Crimson answered with an 11-2 run toonce again extend its lead.
But Brown once again showed surprisingresilience, scratching its way back to tie thegame at 59-59 with 3:00 remaining in the game.
"Brown played really hard and aggressively allevening," Sullivan said. "But I liked the way westayed focused and in control, even when they tiedit up. A big key for us was getting so manysecond-chance points."
With the game knotted at 59, Harvard looked toits strongest scoring threat--Clemente--for a lift,and the sophomore delivered. Receiving the ball inthe post, Clemente muscled inside for a toughlay-up, picking up a foul in the process. He madegood on he free throw, putting Harvard up forgood.
"In the second half I saw some of our guysgetting winded," Hill said, "so I tried to slow upthe pace, which might have hurt our rhythm. But Ithink down the stretch it helped us out."
Over the last two minutes Hill took control ofthe offense, scoring he Crimson's eight finalpoints. He knifed through the lane for a lay-up,and hit all six of his free throws down thestretch to clinch the win for Harvard.
Hill finished the game with 16 points and nineassists. Clemente scored 17 points on the night on7-of 15 shooting. And Beam led the Crimson with 21points, hitting on 8-of-15 from the floor,including 5-of-9 from distance. Beam also addedseven rebounds.
Notes
Senior guard Chris Dexter, who has beeninjury-plagued for the majority of his Harvardcareer, made 2-of-4 from three-point range in thewin against Yale, including he Crimson's last two,which provided the school mark.