CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Harvard, winners of two straight contests, will wrap up its season-long three-game road trip on Saturday when it visits Cornell for a 2 p.m. ET game that will air on ESPN+.
What to Know
- The Crimson is making its fifth trip this season to The Empire State. Harvard visited Iona, UAlbany and Siena in a span of 10 November days before returning to face Columbia on Jan. 15.
- Harvard is looking for its third consecutive victory, which would match its season-long streak. In December, the Crimson defeated Babson, Holy Cross and Howard in succession before COVID-19 wiped out its next two games. In its attempt to win its fourth straight game, Harvard fell to Brown in its Ivy League opener.
- The Crimson is looking to accomplish something not seen in Cambridge since 2017-18, which is winning back-to-back-to-back road games. That group won games at Dartmouth (Jan. 20, 2018), Yale (Jan. 26, 2018) and Brown (Jan. 27, 2018).
- Harvard will travel to Ithaca fresh off a 60-59 road victory at Dartmouth on Martin Luther King Day. The Crimson led by 13 points in the first half and needed a defensive stop in the final seconds to escape with the decision.
- Noah Kirkwood led the way for Harvard, posting a game-high 24 points, five assists and three steals. The senior came up big in critical spots, once scoring seven straight points in the first half to turn a four-point lead into an eight-point cushion. Then, with Dartmouth within four points with 3:31 left in the second half, Kirkwood knocked down a three on the ensuing possession to pause the Big Green rally.
- For Kirkwood's effort at Dartmouth and the game before at Columbia, he was named the Ivy League Player of the Week on Tuesday for the second time in four weeks. The guard averaged a team-high 26.0 points and 5.0 assists, while adding 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals. For the week, he shot a Harvard-best 54.3 percent from the floor and 90.0 percent from the free-throw line.
- Kirkwood's scoring outburst last week moved him closer to reaching the 1,000-point mark for his career. Despite missing his junior campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirkwood is aiming to become Harvard's 37th player in its prestigious club. Entering the Cornell tilt, Kirkwood has scored 921 points. If he maintains his 17.5-point scoring average, he will hit the milestone on Feb. 9 vs. Yale.
- First-year Louis Lesmond scored all 12 of his points at Dartmouth in the first half, while playing a team-high 35 minutes. The guard from France started both games last week and averaged 11.0 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 32.3 minutes, which was what Kirkwood averaged over two games. Lesmond enters the Cornell contest having reached double figures in scoring in a career-best three straight games.
- Lesmond's classmate, Denham Wojcik, joined him in the starting lineup last week to log the first two starts of his career. The 6-2 guard ended up posting career highs in rebounding in back-to-back outings, first sharing team-high honors with Kirkwood after both of them had six boards at Columbia, and then pulling down a team-best seven against the Big Green. Wojcik last week averaged 4.0 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.0 steals in 28.9 minutes.
- First-year Evan Nelson played the first two games of his career last week and enjoyed a solid opening week, compiling 14 points, six rebounds, three assists, one blocked shot, one steal and one turnover in 36 minutes, 22 seconds of action. He made 5-of-11 shots from the floor (.455), but was 3-for-5 from behind the arc.
At the Helm
Tommy Amaker, The Thomas G. Stemberg '71 Family Endowed Coach for Harvard Men's Basketball, is in his 15th season at Harvard. He is the winningest coach in Crimson history with 261 victories and has led the program to seven Ivy League titles and eight postseason appearances.
Up Next
The Crimson returns to Lavietes Pavilion on Jan. 28, when it welcomes Penn at 5 p.m. ET. The game will air on ESPNU.
