George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
4-3
Harvard
1-4
GW Takes Down Harvard, 77-74
11/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In its first true road game of the season, the GW men's basketball team shipped up to Boston and secured a 77-74 win against the Harvard Crimson to improve to 4-3 on the season.
The Colonials won the game at the free throw line and on the glass as GW got back to its basics, sinking more freebies than the opposition attempted (GW: 26-of-35, .743; Harvard: 13-of-17, .765) and dominating the rebounding battle with a commanding 40-29 edge.
After GW led 37-33 at the half behind a monster effort on the interior from Tyler Cavanaugh (11 first half points) and freshman Kevin Marfo, who set a new career high in scoring in the game's first 20 minutes with his nine of his own, the Colonials then opened the second stanza on an 11-2 run to open their largest lead of the contest. Harvard battled back from the 13-point deficit, however, to tie the game at 60 with 5:11 to play, only to have Cavanaugh sink one of two free throws on GW's next possession to give GW the lead back for good.
From there it was junior point man Jaren Sina who put the game away at the line as he canned all 12 of his second half free throw attempts in a 17-point second half showing (career-high 19 for the game).
"The fact that we withstood that run was impressive because at any level it's tough to get wins on the road and this is our first true road test," said interim head coach Maurice Joseph. "I'm proud of our guys in how we responded."
Cavanaugh finished with a game-high 20 points to go with seven rebounds, and after Marfo did his damage in the first half, it was freshman classmate Arnaldo Toro who came up big in the second half. Toro grabbed six second half boards to finish the game with a career- and game-high 10 rebounds.
Behind Cavanaugh and Sina, and without second-leading scorer Yuta Watanabe (calf), the Colonials found balanced complementary scoring. Marfo's nine, eight apiece from Toro and sophomore Jordan Roland in his first collegiate start, and five from both Matt Hart and Collin Goss were enough to keep the Crimson at bay.
"It shows that we're growing," said Joseph. "It shows that we're slowly but surely starting to mature. We're still a very young team and we made some very young mistakes today. I made some coaching mistakes today. Overall we all have to get better and we have to do it collectively; that's what I've been preaching."
Harvard was led by 17 each from Bryce Aiken and Seth Towns, plus 12 from Corey Johnson (4-of-6 3pt. FG) as the Crimson had to shoot over the long GW zone. That trio combined to make 8-of-16 three-pointers, but the Colonials matched that marksmanship with a 5-of-10 team effort from long range. Five different GW student-athletes drained one from distance and eight found the scoring column.
GW's rebounding dominance also yielded a 16-4 advantage in second chance points, as the Colonials plucked 15 of their 40 boards off of offensive caroms.
"You look at the stats across the board, we outrebounded them by 11, we had 16 second-chance points, we only gave up 24 points in the paint which in the last few games it had been in the 30s and 40s," said Joseph. "That's a drastic improvement, so I'm proud of our guys in that regard. Jaren and Tyler did a great job leading. Obviously playing without Yuta is going to hurt us, so guys are going to have to contribute and fill the gaps, fill that void by committee. I think we did that tonight so I'm proud of how our guys battled."
With the win the Colonials snapped a mini three-game losing skid and head home for a back-to-back against teams from Florida this weekend at home against South Florida at 2 p.m. on Saturday followed by a Sunday clash with Florida State at Verizon Center in the BB&T Classic.
