However, the Okolie-Caruso matchup alone will not determine the contest. It will take a complete effort from the Crimson, who did not put together consecutive quality halves last weekend, to come out with a win.

Twice in three conference losses, Harvard has seen a double-digit lead disappear. In the other, it fought back from a 15-point halftime deficit, only to give back the lead with a poor closing stretch.

In that game, against the Big Red, the starting rotation of Okolie, Cummins, Edosomwan, and freshmen Corey Johnson and Tommy McCarthy used less than eight minutes to even the score, but when Amaker went to the bench to give the starters a rest, the progress slowed significantly. Not a single bench player scored a point.

“We ask a lot of our starters,” said Steeves, the team’s highest-scoring reserve. “Guys like Zena have been having breakout seasons and defenses are focusing on them and so I think just for [the bench] to be able to get in there and kind of take some pressure off maybe is something we need to do a better job of this weekend.”

Though the Crimson is on the outside looking in at the top of the Ancient Eight, the round-robin nature of the 14-game conference season means that any team can compete with any opponent on a given night.

“The league is really crazy, so the worst thing you can do is not be prepared for a game on any given night,” Okolie said. “[We’re] focusing on ways to win games this weekend, and hopefully things will work out.”

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