Up seven with just under two minutes to go, the Cornell basketball team committed the cardinal sin: fouling a three-point shooter.

In this case it was sophomore Corbin Miller, who strode to the line looking to cut the deficit to two possessions. Harvard had trailed throughout the second half, but had held the Big Red to under 30 percent shooting from the field. The Crimson, who had won five of six games decided by five or less points this season, had been here before.

The first free throw clanged off the iron. The gym got louder. Miller took a deep breath but missed the second. And then the third.

Cornell (13-14, 5-6 Ivy) ended the comeback hopes with a jumper on the next possession, coasting to a 57-49 lead that knocked Harvard (19-6, 9-2) out of sole possession of first place in the Ivy League.

“I mentioned to our guys that we didn’t earn it, we didn’t deserve it,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said after his team shot 25 percent and forced only seven turnovers.

FAILING TO CONVERT

Miller’s trip to the charity stripe was emblematic of the Crimson’s struggles as a team. Part was poor luck: a free throw shooter of Miller’s quality—the sophomore had been shooting over 80 percent coming in—misses three free throws less than one percent of the time.

Yet part was standard. Harvard shot just 14 of 23 from the line, good for 61 percent. The Crimson only shoot 71 percent as a team, however, and the best shooter was senior forward Jonah Travis, who sunk both of his free throws on the night.

“It just kills you in a game like this when both teams are struggling to put in the basket,” Amaker said. “We didn’t make enough of our [free throws] and that’s one of the stat lines that become critical when you’re not shooting well from the floor.”

On the other side, the Big Red made 20 of its 21 attempts from the charity stripe. Cornell’s Shonn Miller and Devin Cherry, who combined for 39 of the team’s 57 points on the night, made all 14 of their attempts.

“When they got fouled and got to the line, [the makes] added up,” Amaker said. “It gives your defense energy that you scored points on that possession.”

SYMPTOMATIC SHOOTING

On the night, no Harvard player shot better than 33 percent from the field. No player had it tougher than Saunders, who missed 15 of his 21 shots and five of seven threes—including one that would have tied the game at 42 late in the second half.

After the game, Saunders shrugged off the statistics.

“Coach encouraged me to shoot the ball more,” he said. “It was just off tonight.”

It was an uncharacteristic performance but a typical response. When the team struggled to make its threes earlier in the year, Saunders remarked after a win against FAU that “shooting is the kind of thing where you can’t really control it, there are going to be days where everything goes in and days where nothing goes in.”

A worse sign for the Crimson than how Saunders shot was how much he shot. Although Harvard has won four of seven games where Saunders shoots worse than 35 percent, it has won just one of the four when he has taken 18 or more shots.  

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