In an up-tempo battle with both squads pushing the ball up the floor, the teams traded leads in the early going. When most of the Harvard starters took a much-needed rest just six minutes in, the bench opened up the game’s first big lead, taking a 21-14 advantage. Freshman Adam Demuyakor notched all of his six points in the first half.

"We need players to be able to rotate through, to have fresh bodies," Amaker said. "So the bench is going to be critical and I thought that they did a nice job, especially in the first half."

"Everyone [on the bench] came in and hit big shots—I think they even pushed the lead out," Housman said. "There wasn’t a drop off at all."

Mercer managed to tie the score at 31 with less than five minutes remaining in the half, but from there, Harvard regained the momentum with an 11-3 run entering halftime, capped off by a jumper by Lin at the buzzer.

"I thought it was a huge lift for us—just a heads-up play," Amaker said. "I saw him look up and realize how much time was left. He knew he had enough time...to put it on the floor once, maybe twice, and get a clean look."

"I got lucky in a lot of different ways," Lin said. "But I was able to get a semi-open look."

The teams traded baskets coming out of the break, but with the Crimson leading at 54-46, Bears forward Calvin Henry, who led the Mercer attack with 14, made two layups and a three-pointer in a two-minute stretch to get the Bears within a point.

As it did in its win over Northwestern State last Sunday, Harvard shared the ball well, tallying 23 assists as a team, leading to easy shots and a 53.6 field-goal percentage.

"Teamwork’s a big thing for us because we have so many guys who can create," Lin said. "Basically, if we move the ball enough, we’ll get exactly what we want, and that’s pretty much what happened tonight."

—Staff writer Kevin C. Reyes can be reached at kreyes@fas.harvard.edu.