mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-24-20 09:10 AM - Post#301610
In response to whitakk
Before we get too far down the road of the narrative that Harvard is barely surviving in Ivy games, I think the issue of final score and "control" are different.
For instance, here were some of the leads Harvard has held in Ivy play (we could expand this to some of the games just prior to Ivy play as well):
vs. Dartmouth +12 with 2 to play
at Dartmouth +13 with 1 to play
at Yale +13 with 5 to play
vs. Columbia +6 with 3 to play
vs. Princeton +4 with 2 to play
vs. Penn +8 with 2:30 to play
Harvard never trailed in the final five minutes of any of its Ivy wins (NOTE: it did trail Columbia at times in OT).
Its free throw percentage in Ivy play has been appalling, or else some of those games that ended up close might not have. Everyone kind of joked hyperbolically about where Harvard would miss Bryce the most as "being the closer," but I'd argue it's been worse than anyone could have feared.
And I don't think that's going to change much down the stretch. Harvard might not be a double-digit favorite the rest of the way, so if it can get the wins necessary to make the Ivy Tourney, I'd expect they'll continue to be close.
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