“I thought the way we closed the first half was as big as anything,” Amaker said. “It gave us momentum to stay in the game and scratch and claw in the second half.”
Early in the second, Princeton extended its lead to seven with a 6-0 run on jumpers by Davis, Brendan Connolly, and Hummer.
But the Crimson answered with six straight of its own on a Casey driving layup, a Laurent Rivard transition runner off a Curry steal, and a long Casey jumper to make it 39-38.
“It was a game we had to win, and when you have to win, people have to step up,” Casey said. “I was kind of feeling it, and my shots were falling tonight, so it was just my night.”
The Tigers pushed the lead back to six on a Denton Koon three and a Bray layup with 14:16 to go, and the Princeton lead grew to as large as seven at 50-43 moments later.
But from there, Steve Moundou-Missi and Curry hit driving layups—the latter an and-one—to cut it to two. Bray turned it over on the next Tiger possession, and Wright was fouled going up for a dunk at the other end as Lavietes reached its loudest point.
The co-captain hit both free throws to tie the game and then tipped in a Wes Saunders miss on the next Crimson possession to give Harvard back the lead—its first since midway through the opening half—at 52-50 with 9:29 left.
Princeton’s Mack Darrow, Wright, and Hummer traded baskets—Hummer’s an and-one—to give the Tigers a one-point advantage at 55-54 with 8:17 to go in the back-and-forth contest.
But the Crimson held Princeton scoreless for the following six minutes as Harvard retook the lead on Curry’s three.
“I didn’t think we played them very well defensively [last meeting] at Princeton,” Amaker said. “We were hoping we could redeem ourselves on the defensive end.”
The victory set a program record for wins in a season, with 24, and put the Crimson in position to clinch a share of the Ivy title for the second straight season if it can beat Penn at home tomorrow night.
“[The turnaround] is incredibly challenging, no doubt about it,” Amaker said. “[But] we’ll recover, and we’ll be ready.”
—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.