Freshman Wes Saunders responded with a back-door dunk off a pretty pass from Curry, but Rosen answered right back with a long three to make it 51-49.
Casey then went one-of-two from the line on the next Crimson possession, and Rosen hit a step-back jumper to make it a one-point game with 2:27 left.
Co-captain Oliver McNally missed a three next time down for Harvard, but Casey was fouled going for the rebound. His two free throws—shot as a vociferous group of Quaker fans chanted "choke!"—put the Crimson up, 54-51, with 1:48 to go. But Rosen came right back, spinning around Miller, double-clutching, and hitting another jumper to cut Harvard’s lead to one.
McNally then missed another three, and Miles Cartwright did the same for the Quakers. But Penn’s Fran Dougherty grabbed the offensive rebound and got it to Rosen, who drove and was fouled by Casey. His two ensuing free throws proved to be the final points of the contest.
“Give them credit, they never folded,” Amaker said. “Rosen is a special player.... I’m not sure what else we could do [to stop him]. He made some very difficult shots.”
The Crimson led by six at the half, and the advantage got as large as 11 early in the second. But from there, sophomore Laurent Rivard missed a three that would have gotten it to 14, and the Quakers went on a 12-2 run capped by a Rosen long ball. Harvard answered with a 7-0 spurt of its own, but the Quakers refused to let the Crimson pull away in the must-win game.
It was a tough final home contest for McNally and Wright, the latter of whom broke the Crimson career blocks record with 158, but could only watch the final moments from the bench as Amaker instead chose to go with the rookies Saunders and Miller.
“Coach had a lineup out there that he thought could win the game, and you’ve got to support that,” Wright said.
Rosen had 20 points on 6-of-14 shooting, while Casey led Harvard with 12. The Crimson committed 20 turnovers and shot just 32 percent in the second half.
The result was another devastating loss for a team that suffered one-point defeats late last season against Yale—on a Curry miss at the buzzer—and against Princeton in the Ivy League playoff on a Doug Davis buzzer-beater.
Tonight, it was Casey’s charge that once again put the Crimson’s quest to return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1946 in jeopardy.
“It’s real tough,” Wright said. “But we’ve got to move on. We have two games we’ve got to win next week.”
—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.