PHILADELPHIA -- Corbin Miller and Kyle Casey scored 17 points apiece and 25th-ranked Harvard remained perfect in the Ivy League with a 56-50 win Friday against Penn.
The Crimson (21-2, 7-0) snapped a tie midway through the second half with an 11-2 run that gave it the needed cushion for a ninth straight win.
Harvard nearly let the game get away. Zack Rosen, who scored 16 points, forced a turnover that led to Rob Belcore's layup that made it 51-47. Rosen then got the Quakers (12-11, 4-2) closer with a 3-pointer well beyond the arc that cut it to 53-50 with 23.7 seconds left.
The Crimson, however, hung on from the free-throw line and beat Penn for the sixth straight time.
Harvard got hot when it mattered most during the second half. Miller put the Crimson ahead 33-30 on a 3-pointer and hit a second 3 for a 10-point lead. It had the composure and the poise to maintain the lead even as the Quakers charged hard in front of a large and loud crowd at the Palestra.
Miles Cartwright added 12 for Penn, which has lost two of three to drop out of contention in the conference.
There is no conference tournament for the Ivy League. Harvard will look to keep its unbeaten conference season alive today at Princeton.
Connecticut: The NCAA turned down the university's request for a waiver that would allow its men's team to play in the 2013 NCAA tournament. UConn doesn't qualify for the event because of below-standard academic results.
Tennessee: Fans debated on the Knoxville News Sentinel's website whether it was time for women's coach Pat Summitt to retire. Summitt announced during August that she was facing a diagnosis of early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, after 37 seasons of coaching. The Hall of Fame coach said she would continue coaching as long as she was able to but would turn over more responsibility to her assistants.
Her decision to rely more upon her assistants has become more and more evident as the season has gone on. And with each loss, Summitt is being watched even more closely during games.
The Lady Vols (17-7, 8-3 SEC) have struggled in record fashion this season. They scored the fewest points in program history in what was the second-largest margin of defeat in a 72-44 pounding at No. 2 Notre Dame on Jan. 23. Stanford's Nnemkadi Ogwumike scored 42 points on Tennessee on Dec. 20 - the second most by a player.
