But Harvard, after nearly blowing a 21-point second-half lead in Ithaca on Feb. 8, was able to hang on Saturday night for its third straight title.
“For me it’s definitely the sweetest one out of the three,” said Webster, the winningest player in Harvard history. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
The Crimson came out of the gate hot and opened up a 19-13 advantage midway through the first half after a longball by Rivard, who tied the program record for three-pointers in a season during the contest.
But Cornell—which stalled at the top of the key to run the play clock down on many of its first-half possessions—fought back to tie the game with a 6-0 run.
“I thought that in all honesty given the personnel problems that they have suffered recently that it was a terrific strategy,” Amaker said. “[Cornell coach Bill Courtney] was trying to shorten the game.”
After an Asafo-Adjai layup tied the game at 23, sophomore Steve Moundou-Missi knocked down two free throws, Saunders found the forward underneath for a reverse layup, and Rivard drilled a three from the right wing to put Harvard up seven.
Peck—the focus of a Big Red offense that was missing its best player, sophomore Shonn Miller, as well as starters Johnathan Gray and Devin Cherry—was fouled on a drive with 5.6 seconds remaining before the break. He went to the line and hit his first free throw, but missed the second, and Chambers went coast-to-coast against the Cornell defense for a layup at the buzzer to extend Harvard’s lead to eight.
“I think we ended the half well,” Amaker said. “That was a critical stretch of the game for us.”
After pulling away in the second, Harvard became the ninth team since the Ivy League’s inception in 1946 to win three straight league titles.
“We may not have had what we what we had [at the beginning of the season], but we believed that we had enough, and we stayed with that theme,” Amaker said. “To be here right now—what a moment.”
—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @ScottASherm.