CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –
Chisom Okpara made a pair of free throws with 3.4 seconds left in regulation and a Holy Cross three-point attempt was off the mark at the buzzer as the Crimson earned a 74-72 non-conference victory Thursday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion.
With the win, Harvard moves to 8-3 on the season and 5-0 at home. Holy Cross, which dropped its fifth straight game to the Crimson, fell to 2-10.
Okpara scored a career-high 26 points on a career-high-tying 10 field goals (10-14) to go with a team-high six rebounds and four assists.
Tyler Simon joined Okpara in double figures with a personal-record 12 points on the strength of a career-high four three-pointers.
Harvard Highlights
- Denham Wojcik shared team-high honors with Okpara as both pulled down six rebounds. The six boards were a season-high for the junior guard, who also had a career-high-tying and game-best five assists. Wojcik started his first game of 2023-24 with Malik Mack out indefinitely due to mononucleosis and logged a career-high-matching 37 minutes.
- The Crimson matched a season-high with 11 three-point field goals (at UMass). In addition to Simon's four treys, Louis Lesmond knocked down three, with Okpara, Chandler Piggé, Thomas Batties II and Xavier Nesbitt all making one.
- Harvard had 15 assists on 26 buckets. The Crimson had 16 assists combined over its last two outings.
- The Crimson shot 49.1 percent from the floor, its third-highest percentage vs. a Division I opponent this season.
- Harvard made 45.8 percent from behind the arc, tying for its second-best performance this season (at UMass).
Gallery: (12-21-2023) Harvard Men's Basketball vs Holy Cross
How It Happened
- Harvard enjoyed an excellent start to the game, with three different players scoring a bucket, giving the Crimson an early 6-0 lead.
- The Crimson maintained its lead as the game progressed and had to withstand a Holy Cross run after the under-12-minute media timeout. The Crusaders closed to within 21-15, but Harvard received back-to-back triples from Nesbitt and Lesmond to keep the visitors at arm's length.
- The two three-pointers spurred a 13-4 run, which also included two more Lesmond triples, and Harvard enjoyed a 34-19 lead. The Crimson ultimately went into halftime with a 42-32 advantage.
- Harvard held a double-digit lead for the first five minutes of the second half, but four consecutive Crusader points pulled them to within six at the 14-minute mark in the second half.
- Similar to the first period when Holy Cross trailed by six, Harvard answered with a 7-0 spurt, aided by a Tyler Simon three, to extinguish the Crusader rally and push its lead to 56-43. Simon later added another three to give the Crimson a 59-49 cushion with 10:20 left.
- The Crusaders scored eight unanswered points, a run that was punctuated by a Khalil Singleton three-point play, cutting the Holy Cross deficit to 61-58. Simon, however, stopped the scoring spree with another triple with 6:41 remaining in regulation.
- Holy Cross, however, would not go quietly into the evening, cutting its deficit to four points with 2:49 left before tying the score at 72 with 1:03 to go.
- On the ensuing possession, Harvard came up empty and Holy Cross missed a three, which Piggé corralled.
- With 12 seconds left, Harvard decided against using a timeout and found Okpara underneath the hoop where he was fouled in the act of shooting. The sophomore then knocked down both free throws to put the Crimson ahead, 74-72.
- Holy Cross went the length of the floor and received a decent look from Joe Nugent, but his three-point attempt was unsuccessful as the Crimson improved to 2-0 on its current four-game homestand.
Next Up
Harvard hosts Iona on Saturday, Dec. 30 at 2:00 p.m. (ESPN+) at Lavietes Pavilion.
