Junior wing Wesley Saunders, shown here in earlier action with Columbia's Maodo Lo, contributed nine of the Crimson's 30 points in the first half.

With the score tied at 73 and less than 20 seconds left in overtime, Columbia forward Alex Rosenberg gathered a pass at the top of the key. Staring down his defender, Harvard co-captain Laurent Rivard, Rosenberg watched the clock tick away, bleeding it out for the final possession.

The rest of the Lions cleared out to the left side of the floor, leaving him alone. Having watched Rosenberg torch a host of Crimson defenders for 32 points, Columbia coach Kyle Smith instructed Rosenberg to hold the ball and force Harvard to make a stop.

Rosenberg took two dribbles to the right and crossed over Rivard, lowering his shoulder en route to the basket. Drawing contact, he banked in a shot as the whistle blew.

Charge. Crimson ball. Two seconds later, double overtime.

In the second extra period, Rivard led the charge with four points as the Harvard men’s basketball team (20-4, 7-1 Ivy) pulled out an 88-84 victory over the Lions (15-10, 4-4).

“I thought [there were] an assortment of big plays…. But that was obviously a game-changing one right there,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “We certainly made some big plays and [had] enough to come out with a victory.”

For most of the contest, a razor-thin margin separated the two teams. Columbia’s Maodo Lo and Rosenberg combined for 54 points on the night, hitting six of the Lions’ seven threes. After the Crimson took a 60-48 lead with six minutes to go, Rosenberg and Lo scored 14 points as part of an 18-4 Columbia run.

The spurt culminated in a layup by center Cory Osetkowski as the shot clock expired, putting the Lions up two with 75 seconds remaining. On the other end, sophomore point guard Siyani Chambers drew a foul and sunk two free throws to tie up the game. But once again, Rosenberg had the answer. Isolated on the right side, Rosenberg backed down wiry sophomore Agunwa Okolie and laid the ball in to give Columbia a two-point lead.

Harvard responded by handing the ball to its most consistent offensive weapon, junior Wesley Saunders. Saunders, who finished with 19 points on just eight shots, spun into the lane, but could not finish the drive. However, junior Steve Moundou-Missi tipped in the errant shot, and after a missed Lo jumper, the two teams headed to overtime.

“We felt that this was a critical game, [and] I think they felt the same way,” Amaker said. “I think it was evident by how both teams played, how hard both teams fought for this victory.… There’s a lot of basketball to be played but certainly for us, I think to be able to turn the page from last weekend after a Saturday night loss at home, I thought this was a critical game.”

For the evening, Moundou-Missi and Chambers anchored a dynamic inside-out attack for Harvard. The two tied for the team-lead in scoring with 22, pouring in 11 of the team’s 20 points after the end of regulation. In a one-minute span early in the first overtime, the pair drew the fourth and fifth fouls on Osetkowski, who finished with 10 points and four blocks.

“We’ve come to expect sensational efforts on the offensive end by some of our guys, but to see Steve play the way he played with a great deal of confidence—stepping up, making shots and getting on the glass—was the difference for us,” Amaker said.

Although it had 58 points in the final 30 minutes of play, Harvard struggled to score early. Fresh off a weekend where it shot 35 percent from the field as a team, the Crimson made only 42 percent of its shots in the opening period. Although the team’s top three scorers—Chambers, Saunders, and senior Kyle Casey—combined to make seven of 10 shots, Harvard’s bench made just one of eight attempts in the first half.

The starter-bench disparity continued throughout the game. With Casey in foul trouble, fouling out in just 12 minutes of play, co-captain Brandyn Curry and the four remaining starters all played 38 minutes or more. Overall, the bench had just seven points in 73 minutes as Amaker elected to stick to the same lineup down the stretch.

“We’ve known that we can go small at times if we need it,” Amaker said. “I just thought that lineup was what we needed tonight to see if we could somehow come up with a victory.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.