It was one small step for Dartmouth’s Charles Harris, and one giant leap into the record books for Elliott Prasse-Freeman.

The heady senior point guard dished out seven assists Saturday to become the Ivy League’s all-time leader in that category as the Harvard men’s basketball team barely edged the Big Green, 69-68, in Hanover, N.H.

The Crimson (10-5, 2-0 Ivy) was clinging to a three-point lead with two seconds left when Dartmouth’s Harris sank what he intended to be a game-tying three-pointer. Harris, who was guarded by Harvard senior forward Sam Winter, took one extra dribble before he released the shot, just stepping inside the line and allowing Harvard to hang on by the slimmest of margins.

“Sam did an awesome job defending Harris out on the perimeter,” senior center Brian Sigafoos said. “He was in his face contesting the shot. Harris took two dribbles and the second one brought him just inside the line. The Dartmouth bench was celebrating like they had just tied the game, but we knew it was a two. It was too bad for them.”

Harvard senior guard Patrick Harvey posted a game-high 27 points on 9-of-17 shooting. He nailed 4-of-5 critical free throws down the stretch as the Crimson improved to 2-0 in league play heading into first-semester exams.

The Crimson will resume its conference season in three weeks with what is perennially its toughest test, the road trip to Princeton and Penn.

“It’s a great thing,” Prasse-Freeman said of the earlier-than-usual visit to the Killer P’s. “It’s a chance to go after the hegemons of our league right away and make a statement.”

Prasse-Freeman made a statement of his own Saturday when he officially moved ahead of Yale great Peter White ’87 on the all-time assist list. The record-breaking pass came on an inbound play, when Prasse-Freeman took the ball quickly from the referee and found captain Brady Merchant (14 points) on a baseline cut for a layup.

“I’m just relieved and glad to get it out of my head so I can focus on the Ivy League season,” Prasse-Freeman said of the milestone. “I did a bunch of interviews with hometown papers and with Channel 5 from Boston lately, so I was ready to just get it out of the way.”

Not even six turnovers or an 0-for-5 three-point shooting effort could spoil Prasse-Freeman’s historic night. His teammates made sure of that, committing just four additional giveaways and hitting eight of their 20 shots from beyond the arc.

“Elliott takes a lot of chances, but most of the time they pay off,” Sigafoos said. “His passes are always two steps ahead of the defender and even before the offensive player makes his move. A lot of times, the defense is just in shock because they thought nothing was open.”

Harvey spearheaded the Crimson’s effort from downtown, knocking down five three-pointers. His three-point binge came much to the chagrin of Dartmouth’s defense, which in the course of one week has been damned when it did overplay Harvey and damned when it didn’t.

In the Crimson’s 67-50 win last weekend, Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher committed his defense to stopping Harvey and the rest of the Harvard backcourt, instructing his forwards to cheat off their inside assignments to help out on the Crimson guards. That strategy backfired, as Harvard’s guards simply fed the ball into the post behind the Big Green’s hedging forwards for easy layups underneath. The biggest beneficiary of Faucher’s game plan was Sigafoos, who tallied a career-high 24 points.

On Saturday, Dartmouth (4-8, 0-2) played the Crimson frontcourt honestly—“they came after us right away because we put up such good numbers last time,” Sigafoos said about himself and Winter—but the Big Green paid for it.

“They definitely swarmed the post,” said Prasse-Freeman, who finished with six points. “They were fading on our guards a lot, too.”