Despite a poor offensive performance in the first half, the Harvard men’s basketball team (17-5, 7-1 Ivy) won handily against Cornell (12-12, 4-4) thanks to a big run to open up the second half.

MAKING IT RAIN

After draining seven threes in the first half of Friday night’s win over Columbia, the Crimson went 0-for-8 from beyond the arc in the first half against Cornell. Senior Wesley Saunders was personally responsible for half of those misses, as he finished the first half without a single point.

In what would turn into a 31-minute drought dating back to last nights contest, Harvard simply couldn’t buy a basket from deep for the beginning of Saturday’s matchup.

“I think a lot of us took good shots,” sophomore guard Corbin Miller said. “I remember one in the corner that was wide open, it just didn’t go down.”

That was the storyline for Harvard in the open half; the Crimson’s offensive woes, especially from three, were not a product of poor possessions or stagnant players, but rather an inability to simply connect on shots. 

Nonetheless, Harvard stayed the course. After missing his fifth three point attempt of the game to open the second half, Saunders promptly knocked down the Crimson’s first three of the game just two possessions later.

From there, it was as if the basket seemed to get wider and wider for the home team. In the second half, Harvard went 7-of-13 from three including two from both Miller and junior captain Siyani Chamber.

“Being here at home, our focus coming out was just to continue to play tough defense, attack on offense, and trust that shots were going to fall,” Miller said.

HOLDING DOWN THE FORT

While Harvard’s offense may have come alive in the second half, that was by no means the case on the defensive end. Instead, the Crimson’s stifling defense was omnipresent throughout the entire contest.

Harvard set the tone from the opening possession. After Cornell won the tip off, junior Agunwa Okolie raced back and sent a lay up from Cornell senior Galal Cancer flying into the stands.

“The key to this game for us was our defense,” Head Coach Tommy Amaker noted. “When you see the numbers and it kind of shows you that our defensive pressure and ability to get the ball off the backboard allows us to play up the floor.”

While Harvard’s offense struggled in the first half, its defense limited Cornell, a team that averages 32.5 points per a half, to only 24 points in the first half.

“We kept our defensive intensity up,” Amaker said. “I thought that was the key for us at the half.