“He’s just a great floor general,” Wright said. “We can’t do the things that we do without him as our point guard.”

NO FREE LUNCH

While Jordan’s offense was limited by Curry’s defense, the Knights’ leading scorer, forward Keith Clanton, also struggled. Clanton, who entered Saturday’s contest coming off a 20-point performance in UCF’s victory over No. 4 UConn, finished with 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting, his worst shooting performance of the season.

“We didn’t want to bail those guys out,” said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker of Jordan and Clanton. “We need to play our defense without fouling them. That was critical.”

Jordan and Clanton got to the line seven times but converted only three free throws. The Knights’ free-throw woes extended beyond Jordan and Clanton, as UCF shot an abysmal 8-of-23 (35 percent) from the charity stripe.

The Crimson made 35 trips to the free-throw line and connected on 23, good for 66 percent. Casey led the way for Harvard, getting to the line on 12 occasions. But the junior struggled, going 7-for-12, the one blemish on an otherwise strong performance on the eve of his 21st birthday.

“I thought that other than Kyle’s being a better foul shooter than what he displayed here in this game, I thought he played an outstanding game,” Amaker said.

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