Crimson’s grasp of Ivy slips away

Prior to yesterday’s playoff game between Ivy League co-champions Harvard and Princeton, the captains from both sides were summoned to center court to receive their respective team’s share of the conference title.
But after 40 minutes of exciting back-and-forth action, Princeton stood alone atop the order of the Ancient Eight. Tigers guard Douglas Davis dropped in a lean-in jumper from 12 feet with 0.2 seconds remaining for a 63-62 victory against the Crimson before an evenly split, banged-out crowd of 2,652 at Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater.
Davis’ first attempt at the go-ahead points with 2.8 seconds remaining was rejected out of bounds by Harvard’s Kyle Casey. Off the inbounds play, Davis eluded Harvard defender Oliver McNally and escaped from the baseline to deposit the most significant shot of his college career.
“My thing was to make the shot as easy as possible,” Davis said. “I got a good screen and originally I thought they would deny me the ball, but I was able to get open. I took a couple of dribbles, it felt good, and it went in.”
Princeton (25-6) secured its 24th trip to the NCAA tournament and first since 2004. The Tigers have won 26 Ivy titles, while the Crimson (23-6) finished with their first after both teams went 12-2 in league play.
“I think Harvard is really, really good and I want to give credit to them,” Princeton coach Sydney Johnson said. “But I do think we are kind of over there in the corner where there is an expectation to win here, and that’s a different responsibility.”
The Crimson concluded the most successful season in the 100-year history of the program. Coach Tommy Amaker sounded skeptical about Harvard’s chances of being awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, but he confirmed his senior-less team would accept an NIT invitation.
“We think of this afternoon and this afternoon only and worry about those kind of plans, thoughts and decisions,” Amaker said. “We wanted to put ourselves in position to get the outright (NCAA) bid from our league, and that didn’t happen. It’s been very exciting for us to have the opportunity to play in these types of games late in the year, and it’s been the vision we’ve had for our program.”
Davis (15 points) was the hero, but the game was won underneath in the battle of the big men between Princeton’s Kareem Maddox and Harvard’s Keith Wright. Maddox won the battle of the blocks with 10 points and 13 rebounds (10 defensive, three offensive). Wright finished with a game-high 16 points with six rebounds.
McNally, Christian Webster and Brandyn Curry combined for 37 points for a Harvard team that shot 51.1 percent from the floor. Princeton shot 41.8 percent but enjoyed a significant — and deciding — 36-24 edge on the boards.
“I think it was won on the defensive end in general,” Maddox said. “We didn’t give up too many second-chance opportunities and we kind of dug in.”
Harvard led by seven points at the break and maintained its advantage through the midway point of the second half. The Crimson’s chances were compromised when Wright picked up his fourth foul with 7:02 to play. Davis led the Tigers’ surge to the front with a medium-range jumper and a 3-pointer to give them a 51-50 lead with 5:20 to play.
The final five minutes included three ties and six lead changes.
Harvard went up 60-59 on a runner by Casey with 58 seconds to play. Ian Hummer followed with a layup to put Princeton up by one with 38 seconds showing. The Crimson came up the floor and regained the lead on a drive by Curry with nine seconds to play, setting the stage for Davis’ buzzer-beater.
“We are a very composed team when we are down,” the Tigers’ Dan Mavraides (11 points) said. “We were down by seven at the half, but we had 20 minutes left and that’s a lifetime, and our goal was to chip away.”
Both teams seemed overwhelmed with nervous energy off the opening tap, but they quickly settled down into the patterns that brought them to this stage. Mavraides opened the scoring with a vintage backdoor cut with 18:22 to play. Curry commanded the response by scoring six points during a 13-6 run that put Harvard up by five.
Princeton regained the lead with a 10-2 run that Mavraides extended with a transition layup and a 3-pointer that made it 18-15 with 9:46 to play. The Crimson tied the game on a turnaround jumper from the top of the key with 9:21 on the clock and then controlled play into the break.
Webster’s contributions from the perimeter and Wright’s muscle on the blocks sent Harvard on a 14-7 run. Laurent Rivard capped the run with a baseline drive that gave Harvard a 32-25 lead at the break. The Crimson hit 13-of-25 from the floor in the half while the Tigers were 9-of-27. Princeton enjoyed a 20-12 rebounding edge in the opening 20 minutes.