On Colorado’s first possession, McNally pulled down a rebound off a missed jumper from Alec Burks and then found Wright in the post for the easy two on the Crimson’s next possession.

Burks answered with a reverse layup to cut the Harvard lead to 12, but McNally dialed up another deep ball—this time off a pass from Wright—to pad the Crimson lead.

Two possessions later, Webster gave Harvard its biggest lead of the contest, drilling his second of three three-pointers on the afternoon to put the Crimson ahead, 49-32.

“We came out of the blocks, and I thought our kids responded very well at the half,” Amaker said. “I thought we put them on their heels right away, and it made a big difference, obviously, in the outcome of the game.”

Colorado made one last push midway through the second period, going on a 10-3 run capped off by a three-pointer and an and-one layup from Higgins to cut the Crimson lead to 11 with 8:48 left to play.

But Harvard didn’t let its lead dip into single digits thanks to some timely buckets from Wright down the stretch, and the Crimson cruised to the 16-point win.

“From an outside perspective, people probably [didn’t] think we had a chance,” McNally said. “But when we play well and together, we can beat a lot of teams, and that’s what we did [yesterday].”

—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.