During this second scoreless drought, Amaker attempted to inject some fresh energy by inserting freshmen guard Rio Haskett and Danilo Djuricic into the lineup. Despite a quick drive-in layup by Djuricic, the points were nullified after an extended official review noted a clock malfunction. Soon after, the duo was subbed out in place of Amaker’s starters.
Sophomore point guard Bryce Aiken, who returned to the lineup after an extended month-long knee recovery, was given seven minutes of action in the second half. However, Aiken lacked a noticeable degree of mobility and agility in his legs and was kept scoreless in the second frame. Aiken’s only points of the contest came on a triple at the 13 minute mark of the first frame, his first bucket since December 6th against Fordham.
“We were just trying to see if we could find minutes for [Aiken] to get him back into any kind of game shape, game rhythm,” Amaker said. “The rhythm was the best way you could really see, he’s out of rhythm. That happens when you have been out as long as he has been.”
The limited options coming off the bench for Amaker created a substantially lopsided minutes distribution and resulted in Harvard quickly turning back to its starters to finish the game. All five of Amaker’s starters were on the court by the 6:27 mark, while Yale finished the game substituting several players in its eight-man rotation in order to play offense-defense.
This minutes distribution may also become an issue in Saturday night’s game against Brown, as the Crimson starters have already logged a combined 165 minutes of play this weekend. In comparison, Yale’s starters accounted for 24 fewer combined minutes.
Amaker’s dependence on his starters, however, has so far equated to victories. This type of resiliency down the stretch will be critical if these extended droughts and opponent runs persist.
“We always know that we have been there before and we understand that we are playing a great team,” Lewis said. “Through our past games and our intensity in practice we knew how to keep our composure, knew that we were going to get a good shot. As long as we lock down on defense, we would be able to stay until the end.”
—Staff writer Henry Zhu can be reached at henry.zhu@thecrimson.com