NEW YORK—Friday night was supposed to be captain Matt Stehle’s night.

With a single basket, Stehle would become just the 22nd player in Harvard history to crack the 1,000 point barrier, deservedly etching his name in the Crimson basketball record books.

But the combination of a nasty flu virus and foul trouble threatened to turn an evening of celebration into one that could wreck Harvard’s Ivy title hopes.

Stehle missed the shoot-around and pre-game film study. He was a game-time decision to start, but four minutes in, his playing time would be limited for a different reason.

Stehle committed a loose-ball foul at the 18:18 mark and then hacked Columbia forward John Baumann two minutes later, relegating him to the bench for the next five minutes with a zero in the column he did need and a two in the one he didn’t. If this night was to be a celebration of Stehle’s career, it would be almost fitting that cheap fouls played a key role.

“I picked up two dumb fouls,” Stehle said. “Typical me.”

With its captain gone, the Crimson struggled to score points, as senior center Brian Cusworth missed a number of finishes from close range, while junior guard Jim Goffredo and senior swingman Zach Martin tried unsuccessfully to connect from behind the arc.

The Lions took advantage of Stehle’s absence by picking eight early points in the paint on two hooks and two layups. Columbia built a 14-6 lead heading into the second media timeout, forcing Harvard coach Frank Sullivan to bring Stehle back into the contest.

“I think [Coach Sullivan] was just like, ‘If this is how we’re going to lose, this is how we’re going to lose. And if you’re going to screw the game up for us, this is how you’re going to do it,’” Stehle said.

“I felt we had no composure in the game at that point,” Sullivan said. “We needed something to happen, because we weren’t shooting the ball particularly well. We needed some rebounding as well, so we took a chance and put him in there.”

The 6’8” forward silently got his 1,000th point and more, running off eight to pull the Crimson back within three, and he added two more free throws after the next media timeout to shave the deficit to 23-21.

With the momentum effectively shifted, Sullivan pulled Stehle out of the game after the made free throws, in order to keep him from picking up his third foul.

Stehle’s rest didn’t last long, however, as four straight points by the Lions saw Stehle pop back up and re-enter the game. When the Crimson pulled back within three with just over four minutes remaining in the half, Sullivan sent sophomore forward Brad Unger into the contest to bring Stehle back to the safety of the bench.

Stehle saw one last brief stint of action during which Goffredo hit his first three of the game to give Harvard its first lead of the night. Once again, Sullivan pulled Stehle from the contest and sent freshman forward Evan Harris in. After the 6’8 rookie finished off a layup, he proceeded to throw away an inbounds pass before committing an offensive foul on a botched pick attempt.

Columbia reclaimed the lead at 34-33 heading into the intermission, but for Harvard it was mission accomplished. The Crimson kept the game close and got its star forward to the break with just two fouls, leaving it in good shape to make a run at the victory in the second half.

“We would have liked the lead, we had the lead, and we should have had the lead at halftime,” Stehle said. “In terms of how we started, being down one at halftime, and playing that well [in] the last 10 minutes of the half was pretty much as good as we could have hoped for.”

After playing just 10 minutes in the first half, which might not have been such a terrible thing for someone battling the flu, Stehle went all but two in the second. Just over five minutes after the intermission, Stehle stole the ball from Columbia guard K.J. Matsui and took the ball the other way for a layup. His baseline jumper less than a minute later gave the Crimson a two-point lead.

After Lions guard Justin Armstrong drained a trifecta to reclaim the lead for Columbia, Stehle answered with a hard-fought layup to pull Harvard even at 49, and the Crimson would never trail the rest of the way.

“For him it was a crazy game,” Sullivan said. “The guy’s sick all day. He doesn’t go to shoot around, and he doesn’t watch film. He plays this game on Saltines and a little bit of Gatorade. He wound up getting his 1,000th point during the game and no one notices. But he had some composure, and each time he came in he had a presence.”

The final stat line (18 points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals, and four fouls) fit the jack-of-all-trades description that Stehle had filled for the Crimson over the past three seasons.

And so did the stuff that can’t be delineated on stat sheets, like determination and heart.

As the clock ticked down under a minute and Harvard held a 12-point lead, Stehle was still out there, waving off freshman point guard Drew Housman and dribbling the ball all over the court.

The flu was an afterthought. If there was going to be a foul, he wanted to be the one to go to the line and nail down what seemed to be a foregone conclusion at that point.

This was Stehle’s night. Even if no one else knew it.

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