“They’re a really good offensive team, they normally average [78.7] points a game [entering Friday] and we held them to 58 so we did a lot of things right defensively and that’s our identity and our calling card,” Amaker said. “We knew that holding this team down would take a lot.”

AT THE LINE AND BEYOND THE ARC

Though Harvard has shot relatively poorly from three for much of the season—shooting just over 30 percent on the season—the long ball was one of the Crimson’s strong points on Friday night.

After going without a field goal for nearly five minutes during a stretch early in the first half, Harvard’s sharpshooters came alive to give Harvard an early cushion.

Between the 11:22 mark and the 7:33 mark of the first half, Juzang would nail three deep balls. A minute later, Towns would add one of his own to turn what had been a 15-11 deficit into a 23-15 lead with 6:27 to go in the first.

Much like it has through portions of the conference slate, the Crimson shot better from beyond the arc than from the field, shooting 44 percent from beyond the arc while going 40 percent from the field.

In contrast to one of its strong points throughout the season, the Crimson struggled to convert on opportunities at the line. The hosts went 17-of-26 at the line on the night. The nine missed free throws mark the most that Harvard has missed in an outing since missing 10 against MIT back in November.

“I think one of the major keys, and we talked about it before the game was who’s going be able to do the better job at the free throw line in terms of getting there and certainly converting,” Amaker said. “I knew we got a few there late based on them trying to foul us but I thought our ability to utilize the foul line was a big difference for us.”

For the Crimson, the difference at the line would be Towns. The sophomore would go to the line 12 times, converting on nine of those.

“We each have role cards and one of my roles is to get to the free throw line,” Towns said. “That’s always been a focus, I haven’t been doing it well throughout the season, but especially with the way they were calling it and how aggressive the other team was trying to deny the ball, you got to take advantage of it so I felt that was the easiest thing to do.”

The Columbus, Ohio native finished the night with a game-high 22 points on 6-of-16 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 from deep.

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at troy.boccelli@thecrimson.com