From the opening tip, it was apparent that the Harvard men’s basketball team was still affected by its recent three-game slide, which included buzzer-beater losses to Cornell and Princeton.

Brown got six points in the paint in the first four minutes, en route to 43 on the game, as it hopped out to a 10-3 lead.

“Brown was able to get too close to the rim all night long,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said.

Along with interior scoring, the Bears outrebounded the Crimson by five, a dramatic turnaround from the first time the two teams met, with Harvard winning the game and the battle of the boards by 14 in that one.

“We talked about having some pride tonight,” Brown coach Glen Miller said. “Harvard beat us twice last year, and they thumped us the first game [this year]. “

“We wanted to compete for 40 minutes, and that means there’s no excuse for us not being able to win the hustle areas,” he added.

Brown also tacked on 11 second-chance points to the Crimson’s five, thanks in no small part to the Bears’ comparative hustle and tenacity.

“We were very flat,” Harvard captain Matt Stehle said. “We just played in a funk. It was like we had all just woken up from a long sleep.”

A LITTLE PICK ME UP

Stehle gave Harvard a boost out of the intermission, scoring the Crimson’s first eight points after halftime.

But after a three-pointer by freshman point guard Drew Housman, Stehle picked up a technical foul as he tossed the ball to a Brown player.

“That was really a momentum-changing play,” Stehle said. “It was really stupid, and I really let my team down. I was getting really, really frustrated...I was just throwing the ball to the guy, and out of frustration it looked like I was trying to hurt him.”

The Bears took advantage of the opportunity, putting together a 7-0 run to expand their lead to 20 with 12:53 to go in the half.

The foul was Stehle’s third and caused him to be forced to the bench after he picked up his fourth just two minutes later.

QUAKING AT LEVIEN

While the Crimson languished far behind Brown all evening, Ivy-League-leading Penn struggled to dispense with pesky Columbia at Levien Gym.

The Lions hung tough despite falling behind by double-digits on two separate occasions and pulled even on a free throw by Ben Nwachukwu with less than a minute to go. Nwachukwu came through again with a second left, as his tip-in gave Columbia a 59-57 victory.

“Columbia beat Penn?” asked Stehle incredulously after the game.

“They’re not going to lose again, unless we beat them,” he added. “It doesn’t mean too much [to us], but it adds a little insult to injury.”

The Quakers’ loss opened a window of opportunity for the four teams immediately behind it, but three of those four—Cornell, Yale, and Harvard—lost.

Princeton survived with a double-overtime win over Cornell to move to 6-2 in league play, just one game back of Penn.

The Tigers, however, would give that game back the next evening, as they fell 65-64 at Columbia.

THREE-POINT PLAY

Against Brown, senior center Brian Cusworth recorded his third double-double of the season with his totals of 13 points and 11 rebounds in the loss...Junior guard Jim Goffredo racked up 18 points in the game, one more than his total from the previous weekend’s games against Penn and Princeton, and tied a career high in assists with four as well...Brown attempted 27 shots from the stripe while the Crimson only took 22, marking only the fourth time all year that Harvard has had fewer opportunities from the line than its opponent. The Crimson is winless in those games.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.