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With just under 15 minutes to go in the second half, Holy Cross was running away with the game.

Up 44-30, senior co-captain Siyani Chambers looked for an outlet pass that was intercepted by Crusaders’ sophomore guard Patrick Benzan, who takes it away for an uncontested layup. It’s 46-30.

Harvard gets the ball back, but this time it’s junior forward Chris Egi who coughs up the ball. Holy Cross has to work a little bit harder for its next basket following the turnover, passing it once or twice before launching and making an open three.

Harvard coach Tommy Amaker called a timeout to try and stop the bleeding. His team ended the half within striking distance down eight points, but had cut the lead to five off of a trey from sophomore guard Corey Johnson. With a timeout, he could talk to his younger players, quell the Crusader momentum, and quiet the fans decked out in purple who had reclaimed the Crimson’s home court advantage.

When play resumed, though, things didn’t go as Amaker had written them up in the huddle. Instead, Chambers received the inbound pass. He looked to his left for sophomore guard Tommy McCarthy and dished a quick chest pass. The only problem was McCarthy was no longer standing where Chambers intended the pass, and the ball sailed out of bounds without a Crimson player within a foot of it.

This trio of turnovers followed by baskets was exemplary of the entire night for Harvard (1-2) as it fell to the Crusaders (1-3), 63-52.

“It’s just as simple as we have to communicate,” Chambers said. “Loud, early, making sure we’re listening. Listening is a big part of what broke down on some easy buckets today and that’s something that we have to work on in practice so that in games we can stop guys from getting easy baskets.”

Eventually, the Crimson would calm down and reign in the Holy Cross run. It just took until the under-four media timeout, where Amaker told his players to stop looking at the scoreboard and work on inching their way back. Johnson and freshman guard Seth Towns took this to heart, hitting four threes in the final five minutes to cut the 19 point lead to 11 and end the night as Harvard’s top two scorers.

While Johnson and Towns got hot to end the game, the proportion of scoring that came from the two wings was exemplary of the Crimson’s inability to create an inside game. Though freshman forward Henry Welsh had a quietly consistent night with eight points and nine rebounds, many of Harvard’s turnovers came from an inability to get the ball into the paint, a problem Amaker designated a result of the team’s tentativeness to go after fifty-fifty balls.

“We’re not very confident of getting the ball in there with our guys being able to score and finish,” Amaker said. “Our guy who was supposed to do that was Zena [Edosomwan] and when he was in there, it has it down as one attempt, but it got knocked from him before he could make an attempt. Chris Lewis, he has a tip in he can’t finish, a dunk that he rims it and misses the two free throws. When we get opportunities, we aren’t taking advantage of them. That at times can be very deflating.”

Harvard was also without two of its point guards—freshmen Bryce Aiken and Christian Juzang—who were both out with injuries described as “day-to-day”. Aiken is one of the team’s strongest ball handlers and left a gap in the lineup of strong dribblers who could escape the Crusaders’ zone pressure.

While Holy Cross presented a defense Harvard couldn’t break, they also were able to find open shots with seeming ease. In the first half, it was Crusader forward Malachi Alexander. With the Crimson up 16-13 with just over ten minutes to go in the first half, Towns was tasked with guarding Alexander after entering the game from the bench. On Towns’ very first defensive possession, Alexander cut behind him and had an open lane for a dunk. Just over a minute later, Holy Cross ran almost the same play, resulting in another Alexander open layup.

“[Tonight showed] one, how challenging it’s going to be every night for us no matter who we play. It’s Division I college basketball,” Amaker said. “Two it’s going against Harvard, given what we have been able to achieve and it’s become a pretty big game for everybody that we play…. you can’t wait until game time to realize that’s what it’s going to be.”

–Staff writer Theresa C. Hebert can be reached at theresa.hebert@thecrimson.com.