“They were very aggressive, they took us out of anything we wanted to run and knocked the ball off of us,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said. “Obviously having 25 turnovers and only seven assists is not a very good formula for positive basketball.”

Many of the give-aways—which led to 29 points for the opposition—resulted from a team-wide inability to hold onto the ball. Passes repeatedly went off of hands, dribbles went awry, and the raucous Newman Arena crowd ate it up.

As a result, Harvard struggled mightily on the offensive end. One of the league’s top offenses never found a stable rhythm and only took 32 shots from the field, compared to Cornell’s 66.

Giving up no fast break points, the Big Red also stopped Harvard from pushing the ball up into the open floor, one of the team’s strengths.

And the Crimson’s half-court offense ran into plenty of problems of its own, as the lack of a legitimate post presence and clutch shooters crippled the visitng team.

“We have guys that can guard on the perimeter and you have a kid like Jeff waiting there, so it’s difficult to keep penetrating, which they do,” Donahue explained.

On a night when the long-distance shots weren’t falling—the squad shot 33 percent from three—and Foote was bullying his way around inside, only Lin was able to successfully get into the lane and finish at the basket.

Harvard totaled 14 points in the paint to Cornell’s 32.

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu.