“We knew a lot of the stuff they do centers around him,” Engles said of Lewis. “They are a ball-screen heavy offense and we were really focused on making sure that he was contained as much as we could. I thought we did a good job keeping him off the glass as well.”
The Lions were successful in limiting Lewis (seven points and just five field goal attempts), and Harvard was unable to establish an inside game for most of the evening. Despite entering the bonus with 9:45 to play in the game, the Crimson only attempted four free throw attempts down the stretch.
For as much as it struggled down low, Harvard was able to make up for it and then some from beyond the arc. Towns and Johnson led the barrage for the guests, teaming up for 46 of the Crimson’s 76 points and shooting a combined 11-of-21 from long range. The hot shooting from deep was a far cry from the 30.7 percent mark that Harvard held entering the contest.
However, apart from Johnson, much of the Crimson’s backcourt struggled with efficiency from the field. Point guards Christian Juzang, Bryce Aiken, and Mario Haskett shot a combined 2-for-13. Sophomore wing Justin Bassey was two-for-six from the field and turned the ball over six times.
Despite the two lengthy Harvard droughts and simultaneous Columbia runs, perhaps the most frustrating part for the Crimson was that it was still largely in the contest when it went into its third cold spell. A Johnson three with 7:09 to play got Harvard to within two but its next points would not come until Bassey made a layup with 2:43 to play.
Towns would make another three, his sixth of the evening, and freshman forward Danilo Djuricic converted a layup in the closing seconds, but the Lions scored 14 of the night’s final 25 points to put the game on ice. All told, Columbia scored 48 points in the second half (on 60 percent shooting) and 73 over the game’s final 30 minutes, outscoring its guests by 22 in the process. The 83 points allowed were the most that the Crimson has given up since its 2015 trip to Morningside Heights.
—Staff writer Stephen J. Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com.