For the game, the Brown guard notched career highs in both points (25) and assists (nine), shooting 7-of-12 from the field on a night when his team shot at only a 41.8 percent clip.

“I just wanted to win,” Blackmon explained. “I just wanted to win real bad, so I just tried to do whatever I could to help our team win.” 

Both Amaker and Brown coach Mike Martin cited Blackmon’s play as the difference-maker for the Bears, despite the final score.

“I thought his penetration, his ability to get to the rim and make plays, [all of that] put pressure on our defense,” Amaker said. “It was just tremendous the effort he played with.”

On the other side of the floor, accompanying Saunders’s breakout 33-point, 10-rebound performance, senior forward Jonah Travis and junior wing Agunwa Okolie each contributed 11 points, while a coterie of big men—including co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi, junior Evan Cummins, and sophomore Zena Edosomwan—spent time on the floor trying to hold back Brown’s Cedric Kuakumensah. Kuakumensah finished the game with 15 points and four blocks, hitting several of his team’s key jumpers and free throws to tighten the contest down the stretch.

Friday’s overtime marked the third straight year in which Harvard’s game at Brown went into extra periods. For Amaker, the grind-out nature of these contests suggests that in the Ancient Eight, no win is guaranteed.

“We’ve had these types of games against Brown—they’re a tough basketball team matchup for us,” Amaker said. “They’ve played us incredibly hard and well, and we’ve been fortunate in the past and we were fortunate again tonight…. We have a great deal of respect for what Brown has done this season and…[they] are one possession away from looking a lot different.”

—Staff writer Juliet Spies-Gans can be reached at juliet.spies-gans@thecrimson.com.