HONOLULU – Despite coming all the way back from 16 points down early in the game, the BYU men’s basketball team came up short in overtime and fell to the Harvard Crimson 85-82 at the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in the Stan Sheriff Center.
BYU (7-4) led by four at 75-71 with 3:11 left in overtime, tying its largest lead of the game. The Crimson (4-6) continued to fight and closed the gap to one at the 1:04 mark.
Kyle Collinsworth went hard to the basket and laid it in for an 82-79 edge on BYU’s next possession. Harvard made its next shot and a Cougar turnover resulted in the Crimson shooting free throws with 17.8 seconds on the clock, trailing 82-81.
Harvard’s Agunwa Okolie made both free throws to regain the lead at 83-82 and BYU turned it over again on the ensuing possession. Okolie made two more free throws to seal the 85-82 victory.
“Those are times when you need big shots and big plays,” BYU head coach Dave Rose said. “We came up a play short tonight.”
The Cougars outshot Harvard 50.0 percent to 47.5 percent, but the Crimson went 11 of 22 from behind the arc, while BYU made just three triples on the day.
Collinsworth and Kyle Davis each posted 23 points with Davis making it a double-double, adding 16 rebounds. Collinsworth had eight assists, six rebounds and three steals. Nick Emery was also in double figures again with 13 points.
“It was a tough game in the sense that we couldn’t close it out,” Davis said. “We just couldn’t make a play down the stretch to win it. The only thing you can do is just move forward. These losses just sting. We have a couple this season that hurt.”
BYU trailed by 16 points early in the first half, but came alive just before halftime to make it a two-point game at the break. After halftime, the teams went back and forth before a late 9-0 run by the Cougars helped gave BYU some breathing room at 60-55.
Harvard came back to tie it at 64-64 inside of a minute to play and Chase Fischer was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 34.1 seconds remaining. Despite struggling from the line all day, Fischer knocked down 2 of 3 to give BYU a two-point edge.
After Harvard tied it again at 64-64 with a shot in the lane, BYU’s last attempt at the end of regulation didn’t fall, sending the game to overtime.
Harvard opened the game on a 19-3 run to put the Cougars in an early hole but BYU responded with a run of their own.
A pair of threes from Zac Seljaas and nine points from Collinsworth highlighted a 26-9 run to give BYU a 29-28 lead before Harvard hit a trey at the first-half buzzer to lead 31-29 at halftime.
BYU takes on New Mexico tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. MT (9:30 a.m. HT) at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu. The game will be televised on ESPNU and can be heard on the Cougar IMG Sports Network.
Box score: byu-harvard-box
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