Lilly and Cowan Spark Brown Victory Over Harvard

Lilly and Cowan Spark Brown Victory Over Harvard

Kino Lilly Jr. and Perry Cowan put on a three-point shooting clinic in leading a Brown victory against Harvard.

The Brown men's basketball team scored its first Ivy League victory of the season Friday evening as the Bears took down Harvard 84-73 at the Lavietes Pavillion.

The Bears are now 9-8 overall and 1-1 in the Ivy League. Brown has lost to national powers North Carolina, Maryland and Syracuse this season.

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With the loss, Harvard drops to 8-5 and 0-1 in the league.

As a team, the Bears were 15-for-26 (57.7%) from three-point range, which was both their most made three-point field goals and highest three-point percentage of the season. Four Bears ended up in double figures with Kino Lilly Jr. leading the way with 23 points on 5-of-8 shooting from three. Tamenang Choh had 20 points and nine rebounds and Paxson Wojcik tied his career-high of 17 points. Perry Cowan had a career-high 15 points, all from three-pointers, as the junior was 5-of-7 from three.

Brown opened the game with a 7-0 lead. Dan Friday had the first five Bear points with a Jaylan Gainey block sandwiched in between the two buckets.

Harvard responded with a 15-0 run to take a 15-7 lead at 11:45 of the first, but following a media timeout, the Bears went on a run of their own over the next six minutes. Brown outscored Harvard 17-2 during the run to take back the lead and owned a 27-19 advantage with five minutes remaining in the half.

The Crimson would get back within two late in the first, but a pair of threes by Wojcik and Cowan pushed it to a 36-30 halftime advantage.

"I was really pleased with the energy and passion with which we played tonight," head coach Mike Martin said. "Our bench was into it from the opening tip and our players really fed off that and played well. We had so many contributions from different guys. Offensively, we shared the ball well and guys really shot it with confidence."

Harvard scored 12 of the first 16 points in the second half to take back the lead, 42-40, with 15:39 remaining in the game. That's the last the Crimson would see of the lead as the Bears outscored the home team 44-31 the rest of the way.

The second-half effort was led by Lilly and Cowan who hit two and three threes respectively over the final 15 minutes.

Three free throws for Harvard cut Brown's lead to seven with just 30 seconds remaining, but a pair from the charity stripe from both Lilly and Wojcik sealed the victory for the Bears.

Choh had 17 of his 20 points in the second half and Cowan had nine of his 15.

The win is Brown's fourth straight over Harvard, the Bears' longest winning streak against the Crimson since they won five in a row from 2002-2004.

The Bears travel to Dartmouth for a 7 p.m. matchup on Saturday.