Captain Damian Long played the best basketball of his career this season, and his strong shooting performance pinpointed his role as the Harvard men's basketball team's premier shooter in his senior campaign.

On Saturday at Cornell, Long scored a career-high 29 points to lead the Crimson (12-15, 7-7 Ivy) in a 74-60 blowout of the Big Red.

After getting swept in its final home weekend versus Penn and Princeton, Harvard came back and took out both Cornell and Columbia on the road to close out the season. The Crimson escaped with a 61-59 win over Columbia on Friday night and finished the season tied with the Lions for third place in the Ivy League. In what many considered to be a rebuilding year for the team, Harvard finished with an identical conference record as last year, but a worse overall record.

Harvard 74, Cornell 60

Long saved his best for last in the season finale. He hit 10-of-16 shots from the floor, including five three-pointers. He also went a perfect 4-of-4 from the charity stripe.

Harvard led almost the entire game and the outcome was hardly in question. The Crimson jumped out to a 22-12 lead midway through the first half on the strength of junior forward Dan Clemente's long-range shooting. However, the backups came in and the Big Red was able to go to the locker room only down four points.

Playing the strong defense that was present all year, Harvard forced Cornell into poor shots and turnovers, similar to the last game these two played, when the Crimson won 67-57 at home. Cornell forward Ray Mercedes, in addition to being outplayed by Clemente, shot only 1-of-7 in the first half on Saturday and had four turnovers. Overall, Cornell turned the ball over ten times in the first half, which led to 12 Crimson points.

"It was a sluggish game overall, but we played some good defense," said sophomore guard Drew Gellert, who leads the team in steals.