Barbour 30-Piece Clinches Harvard’s Spot in Ivy Madness

The Harvard men’s basketball team walked out of Newman Arena in Ithaca, N.Y. with a return ticket, as its 73-54 demolition of Cornell clinched the Crimson a spot in the Ivy Madness Tournament, which takes place in Ithaca from March 14-15.

Sophomore guard Tey Barbour had a career-high 30 points as the Crimson (15-10, 8-3 Ivy) rode a strong second half against the Big Red (12-12, 5-6) en route to the postseason-clinching victory. Both junior forward Thomas Batties and captain Chandler Piggé finished on triple double watch, as the former recorded 10 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists, and the latter ended with seven points, nine rebounds, and eight assists.

For the first time in six years, Harvard will finish in the top half of the Ancient Eight and compete in the four-team single-elimination tournament that determines who will represent the conference in March Madness.

“It feels great to get to Ivy Madness,” Barbour said. “It’s been a while since our program has been there. We had a heartbreaking loss last week, but I was proud of our guys and proud of our team to bounce back and have a great win.”

Harvard also earned its eighth conference victory of the year, ensuring that the team will have a winning record in the Ivy League for the first time since the 2019-2020 season. The 2025-26 campaign has served as evidence of a successful rebuild for head coach Tommy Amaker, who led Harvard to 10 or more conference wins nine times during the 2010s.

Amaker’s squad has been unstoppable on the road this season. Saturday’s victory improved the team’s away conference record to 5-0. Harvard basketball’s all-time winningest coach was pleased with the team’s defensive effort in a hostile environment as the Crimson held the Big Red — which averages 88.8 PPG — to its lowest offensive output of the season.

“Coming in here this afternoon, I thought it was a great effort by everybody defensively,” Amaker said.

Harvard specifically excelled with hard close-outs and ball denial that made it impossible for Cornell to build a rhythm from beyond the arc. After the Big Red shot 11-for-26 (46 percent) on three-pointers in its January win over the Crimson, the host went just three-for-22 (14 percent) on Saturday.

“We’ve had many good teams in the past, but I don’t know that we’ve ever come up here and played as well as we did this afternoon,” Amaker added.

The first half started with the teams trading the hot hand, as Harvard’s 8-0 run to start the matchup was quickly answered by a 7-0 run from Cornell, and halfway through the period, the teams were stuck in a 16-16 tangle.

The next few minutes were silent, and after three minutes of no scoring, a layup from the Big Red looked to give the home team some momentum. Barbour was not ready to let that happen, and after a quick layup to tie things back up, he hit a three to give his team a three-point lead with just four minutes left to play in the half.

The next few minutes brought more back-and-forth basketball, and a Cornell layup at the buzzer left Harvard’s halftime advantage at just 25-24.

The second half began with a three-pointer from the Big Red, and it seemed like the home team’s offense might have woken up. However, the visiting Crimson responded with a 10-0 killshot over the next three minutes to give itself an 8-point lead with 16 minutes to play.

Cornell cut the lead to four at 39-35 with just over 13 minutes remaining, but Harvard soon opened a double-digit lead that it did not relent for the rest of the game.

Barbour poured in 20 second-half points and flaunted his improved interior game. After scoring nearly exclusively from three-point range for the first half of conference play, the Virginia native has posed a threat off the dribble in recent games, frequently attacking the paint in order to score layups and get to the free throw line.

Sophomore guard Robert Hinton added 16 of his own, and with the strong all-around performances from Batties and Piggé, it was once again the Crimson starters who led their team to a statement road victory over the only team in the conference that it had not beaten to that point.

Next up, Harvard continues its three-game road trip when it faces the Princeton Tigers (8-18, 4-7) in New Jersey on Friday night. The Crimson came back from being down 17 at home to stun Princton in the first matchup. The game will be streamed on ESPN+ and tips off at 7 p.m. EST.

— 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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