Arizona dominated, with its swift guards and towering post players, who if they did not run by or around the Crimson, simply threw the ball inside for hardly contested layups. The Wildcats (27-7) ripped open a 17-2 advantage on the way to a 74-51 victory that pushed them into a West Region semifinal next week in Los Angeles.
Harvard (20-10) made 1 of its first 14 shots and 7 of its 28 attempts in the first half. The Crimson tried to stem their significant size disadvantage, but that only left the Wildcats wide open on the perimeter, susceptible for easy backdoor cuts.
When Arizona lobbed the ball inside to Kaleb Tarczewski (7-feet), Grant Jerrett (6-10, Angelo Chol (6-9) or Brandon Ashley (6-8), it sometimes looked like high schoolers against middle schoolers. The Wildcats' perimeter players (guard Mark Lyons, forward Solomon Hill) did most of the scoring, but that often resulted from simple math; one team tall, the other not so much.
The numbers indicated a mismatch at the outset. Arizona could boast of nearly 30 straight winning seasons; Harvard of four. Arizona had played 32 games in the tournament since 2000; Harvard had played two, a tally that included its first-ever win on Thursday night. Arizona had more than 30 players drafted by N.B.A. teams since 1988; Harvard none, although Jeremy Lin made his professional mark anyway.
In victory, Arizona bucked the curse that had befallen so many of the top seeds in the West Region. Already, the No. 3 seed (New Mexico), No. 4 seed (Kansas State) and No. 5 seed (Wisconsin) had lost in the first round, New Mexico to No. 14 Harvard. Of the top eight seeds, only Gonzaga (1), Ohio State (2) and Arizona (6) managed to advance, and Southern nearly handed the Zags a historic upset.
Perhaps that elevated the expectations for Harvard, its players bent on denting the stereotypes of them as nerds or brainiacs, more versed in books than basketball. Junior guard Laurent Rivard knocked down 11 3-pointers in two N.C.A.A. tournament games (one last season). Kenyatta Smith and Steve Moundou-Missi held their own against the Lobos' own sizable frontcourt.
Sean Miller, Arizona's coach, said that "Harvard's big guys are somewhat misrepresented." Such talk, combined with all the upsets, made a Crimson win seem possible, or more possible, at least.
Then the teams took the court, and there were all those Arizona posts, standing tall, like they were raised up on stilts. In their N.C.A.A. opener, they outrebounded Belmont, whose tallest starter was 6-7, 44-18. Of Harvard's starters, only Smith at 6-8 stood taller than 6-5.
Beyond its height advantage, Arizona also fielded a far more athletic lineup. That was evident in back-to-back lobs to Lyons in the first half that went for automatic layups, plays in which Lyons cut through the defense and leapt toward the rim, his waist above the heads of the defenders that tried in vain to stay with him.
Early into the second half, Harvard guard Siyani Chambers crashed into a Wildcat defender. Chambers crashed to the floor and grimaced as he stood up, his hands covering his mouth. From courtside, it looked as if Arizona had chipped one of his front teeth. An arena official looked for it along the sideline. No foul was called.
For the Crimson, it was that kind of night.
Chambers did return, though, and his 3-pointer from the left corner trimmed the deficit to 44-30. For the most optimistic of optimists, hope remained, at least a sliver of it.
Miller worked the sideline, hands up, palms out, face red. His best college teams at Pittsburgh twice lost in the first week of the tournament, bounced by lower seeds. He knew that Harvard had lost two of its best players to a widespread academic scandal, that the Crimson lost back-to-back games against Princeton and Penn down the stretch. But he also knew, from personal experience, how hard it was to beat anyone in this tournament. Harvard included.
For the Crimson, the worst of all worlds unfolded instead of another upset bid. Harvard could not match Arizona athlete for athlete. It could not mitigate all those tall trees in the post. And if somehow the Crimson had overcome those deficits, their players made too few shots in the first half to beat Columbia, let alone the Wildcats.
As the second half continued, Harvard's fans continued to cheer and hope and implore a Crimson comeback. So did the neutral members of the crowd. It never materialized, though, and down went another darling.
