CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Harvard is set to play its final road game of the 2021-22 regular season on Friday when it faces Ivy League co-leader Princeton. The game will air in front of a national television audience on ESPNEWS.
What to Know
- The Crimson heads south to The Garden State having won its last two games and eying a spot in the Ivy League Tournament. Harvard comes into the Princeton game with the fourth and final tourney spot in its possession, but sits only a half-game ahead of fifth-place Cornell and one game ahead of Dartmouth.
- Harvard is fresh off back-to-back victories over Columbia and Cornell after it had dropped three straight by a combined 14 points. The Crimson knocked off the Lions, 62-54, before dismissing the Big Red in overtime, 77-72.
- The overtime victory was Harvard's 23rd in its last 25 OT games (23-2) since the start of the 2009-10 campaign. The Crimson is 24-5 in overtime contests in the Tommy Amaker era, which dates to the 2007-08 season.
- Noah Kirkwood carried the Crimson to both victories, scoring 22 against Columbia and surpassing that total with a career-high 31 vs. Cornell. The senior averaged 26.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.5 steals, while shooting 58.3 percent from the field and three-point distance (21-36 FG; 7-12 3FG). For his efforts, Kirkwood was named the Ivy League Player of the Week for a third time.
- Kirkwood's final line of 31 points, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals and one blocked shot vs. Cornell made him one of only six Division I players to reach those numbers in a game this season, according to College Basketball Reference. The others are Christian Braun (Kansas), Taevion Kinsey (Marshall), Jake Laravia (Wake Forest), Trenton Massner (Western Illinois) and Azuolas Tubelis (Arizona).
- Kirkwood, who joined Harvard's 1,000-point club on Feb. 9 against Yale, has 1,074 points in his career. The senior is tied with Bill Dennis '54 for 28th in school history. If Kirkwood hits his scoring average of 18.0 points against Princeton, he will pass former teammate Bryce Aiken '20 (1,090 points; No. 25). Coincidentally, Aiken was the last Harvard player to score at least 30 points in a game when he went for 30 vs. Maryland on Nov. 29, 2019.
- Luka Sakota enjoyed a strong homestand against the Ivy League's two New York universities. The junior averaged 15.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals. In his most recent outing, Sakota logged 18 points, which was one off from his career high, and a personal-best seven boards against the Big Red. Sakota also played 75 of a possible 85 minutes last week, tying Kirkwood for most on the team.
- Kale Catchings comes into the game at Princeton fresh off a do-it-all 10-point, 7-rebound, 2-assist (career high) and 2-block outing in a personal-best 30 minutes vs. Cornell. His performance marked the third time this season, and second game in a row, in which he has posted a stat in each of the aforementioned categories. In two games last week, Catchings averaged 8.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks in 27.5 minutes.
- Mason Forbes was a beast on the boards last week, averaging 8.0 against Columbia and Cornell. The senior pulled down a career-high nine vs. the Lions and had nine offensive rebounds for the week, which was five more than the next closest Crimson player (Sam Silverstein - 4).
- Harvard will meet Princeton on Friday for the first time this season, kicking off a two-games-in-three-days series. It will mark the first time the schools will meet consecutively since 2010-11 when the Crimson won on March 5, 2011, in the regular-season finale before the Tigers won the Ivy Playoff on March 12, 2011. The last time the teams met back-to-back in the regular season was Feb. 17 and 23, 1962.
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 264 victories and has led the program to seven Ivy League titles and eight postseason appearances.
Up Next
Harvard returns home to face Princeton on Sunday, Feb. 27, at noon ET. The game will air live on ESPN+. Tickets are available at tickets.gocrimson.com.
