While Harvard relied on an abundance of offense in its first four conference games, the next weekend’s doubleheader against Brown and Yale proved to be of a grittier variety.

Although the Crimson outlasted Brown, 52-45, on Friday, despite shooting only 32 percent from the field, a second consecutive night of poor shooting doomed Harvard to its first loss of Ivy play, a 74-67 win for Yale.

The Bulldogs were led by sophomore forward Justin Sears, whose 21 points and 11 rebounds would prove only a preview for what was to come in the squads’ second matchup of the year. For the weekend, the Crimson shot just over 35 percent from the floor, almost 14 percentage points below its conference average.

“I anticipated it being one of the tougher games we would have,” Amaker said. “We have always thought of them as having great personnel…. They put on a tremendous effort to get a road win against us, something that doesn’t happen very often.”

After driving down to Columbia early on the following Thursday to avoid a snow storm, Harvard was forced to stay in New York City late, as a standout performance from Lions junior forward Alex Rosenberg spearheaded Columbia into a double-overtime, down-to-the-wire contest against the reigning Ivy champs.

Rosenberg totaled 34 points on the night, and a combined 14 points from him and teammate Maodo Lo in the final six minutes of regulation spurred a late Lions comeback. Rosenberg had his way both inside and out, backing down Crimson defenders in the post and converting 4-of-6 shots from behind the arc to lead his team into two rounds of extra minutes.

However, with the game clock running down in the first overtime, Rosenberg made contact with Rivard near the right elbow, and a whistle from the referee signaled an offensive foul on the junior, taking away a potentially game-winning basket. The visiting team was able to close it out from there, and left the Big Apple with an 88-84 victory.