Seattle University was led by Charles Garcia (Los Angeles, Calif.), who notched his seventh double-double of the season with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Chris Gweth (Beaverton, Ore.) finished with 17 points and seven rebounds, and Alex Jones (Phoenix, Ariz.) came off the bench and contributed 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field as well as six rebounds.
SeattleU took a brief 3-2 lead after a Garcia lay-in, but Keith Wright hit a jumper 1:17 into the game, and the Crimson held the lead the rest of the way. Harvard outscored SeattleU 30-8 midway through the first half, punctuated by a dunk from Kyle Casey, as the Crimson shot 61.8 percent from the field (21-of-34) in the first half.
"Harvard is a good team. They did a good job at slowing us down. They have good length from the backline and have an athletic guard on the front line," SeattleU head coach Cameron Dollar said. "We turned the ball over too much early and had too many bad shots ... we could never get the tempo going the way we wanted it."
The Redhawks threatened to make a game of it, scoring 15 unanswered points in the last minute and a half before halftime and the first three minutes of the second half to come within 11 at 52-41. Casey hit a layup and a three-pointer as Harvard scored the next eight points, and the Redhawks were unable to cut the deficit the rest of the way.
Jeremy Lin shot 8-of-9 from the field and 4-of-5 from the free throw line in leading all players with 21 points, plus he had three assists and four steals. Casey finished with 19 points, six rebounds, and three assists, Wright collected 16 points, five rebounds, and three blocked shots, and Christian Webster added 12 points, five rebounds, five assists, and three steals to the winning effort.
Harvard (10-3) held SeattleU to 38.2 percent field goal shooting (26-of-68) and won the rebounding battle, 40-38. While the Crimson made 20-of-23 shots from the free throw line, the Redhawks struggled from the charity stripe, hitting only 16-of-35 free throw attempts in the contest. SeattleU did force Harvard into 19 turnovers, but committed 16 turnovers of their own.
Seattle University (6-9) heads back on the road for three straight games, beginning Wednesday at Oregon State in a game that will be broadcast on FSN Northwest. After contests at Sacramento State and Cal State Northridge, the Redhawks return to KeyArena in two weeks to face Utah Valley beginning at 7:10 p.m.