Barbour’s Steady Shooting Leads Crimson Past Big Green for Third Straight Victory

The Harvard men’s basketball team completed a perfect three-game road trip by beating Dartmouth 71-58 on Saturday evening. Despite hanging close to the Crimson for the first twenty minutes, the Big Green couldn’t hang for the full 40 minutes.

Since the Crimson (13-9, 6-2 Ivy) lost to the Big Green (10-11, 4-4) in the Ivy opener, Harvard has won six of its last seven games. Saturday’s wire-to-wire victory was the team’s fifth straight road win.

“I'm just really happy for our guys, they’re showing growth and development,” Crimson Head Coach Tommy Amaker said. “We’re still a very young team, we’re playing one senior and one junior, and everyone else is younger than that. We’re starting to see some chemistry developing, and just as important as anything, you’re seeing confidence building.”

Harvard’s scoring was led by sophomore guard Robert Hinton for the fourth straight matchup, with the star recording 19 points and nine rebounds. Fellow sophomore guard Tey Barbour scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds, going four-for-eight from beyond the arc.

Harvard—coming off a close win at Yale—came out of the gate slower than it would have liked, with the first points from either team coming nearly two minutes into the first half on a layup from captain Chandler Piggé.

The game continued with strong defense from both sides as the Crimson consistently led but was unable to pull away and form a sizable lead. Entering the second media timeout of the game, Harvard had established a 15-10 advantage thanks to a highlight-reel layup by Piggé, who flipped the ball in over his head with his right hand through contact.

From then on, the Crimson scored primarily through layups and jump shots, but the Big Green appeared to always be able to answer, especially with a trio of first-half three-pointers from forward Jayden Williams. One of Williams’ threes with five minutes left in the half cut Harvard’s lead to just two points, and an evenly fought end to the half left the Crimson up 32-30 at the break.

In the second half, Harvard began to establish its dominance. With 14:14 to go, Piggé snagged a steal and assisted Barbour on a fastbreak corner three, capping a 10-3 run to start the period.

Dartmouth fought back with an ensuing 5-0 run, which cut the Crimson’s lead to 42-38, but Harvard immediately went on an 8-0 near-killshot that brought its lead back to 12.

Still, the Big Green would not give up in its home gym, as Williams and sophomore guard Kareem Thomas knocked down back-to-back threes, narrowing the lead to six.

From there, though, Barbour caught fire, scoring 12 straight. The Crimson’s leading three-point shooter on the season knocked down three straight shots from deep before drawing a foul on another three-pointer and enjoying a perfect trip to the line.

While Dartmouth hung around, holding the Crimson’s lead to ten, Piggé knocked down a dagger three from the left wing with 2:20 to go that put Harvard up 67-54. The Big Green never got back within 10 points.

Interestingly, freshman center Kenan Parrish had a quiet game after notching a career-high 10 points against Yale. Parrish played just two minutes while every starter for the Crimson played at least 34.

Piggé had another strong outing, scoring 13 points and grabbing seven boards. Junior forward Thomas Batties II had 14 points, five rebounds, and four assists.

Harvard’s homecoming after the successful road trip will happen on Friday, when it hosts Brown (7-14, 1-7). The game will tip off at 7:00 p.m. EST and will be streamed on ESPN+.

— Staff Writer Connor Castañeda can be reached at [email protected].

— Staff Writer Samuel S. Rudavsky can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @samrudavsky.

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