SALT LAKE CITY — Sweat, blood, tears and even teeth. Harvard left them all on the Energy Solutions Arena floor yesterday, but it wasn’t enough. Not against an Arizona team that was too big, too athletic and — most auspiciously — too focused in a 74-51 NCAA Tournament third-round rout.
Thanks to a career-high 27 points from Schenectady’s Mark Lyons and some front-court dominance, the sixth-seeded Wildcats (27-7) hammered the undersized and outmatched Crimson inside. Now they’re headed to L.A. for the Sweet 16 vs. Ohio State or Iowa State, while Harvard is headed back to its studies.
Tommy Amaker — who coached Seton Hall into the Sweet 16 more than a decade ago — has led a hoops revival at Harvard. He mentored ex-Knick Jeremy Lin into the phenomenon who took over the Garden, got Harvard into the Big Dance last season for the first time in 66 years, and guided it past New Mexico on Thursday for its first NCAA win.
That Cinderella ride for 14th-seeded Harvard (20-10) ended in last night’s West Region loss, but the expectations haven’t. And for a program that never had any — one far more familiar with CEOs than the NBA — that’s a good thing.
“We’ve been able to build something, that people look at us and say we should be pretty good: And those are good things,’’ Amaker told The Post. “That’s what you work hard to try and create, hopefully be a part of, and I think that’s happened. That’s what these kids want, they want to be thought of as a good team. Now, obviously there are things that come with that.’’
No picture encapsulated Harvard’s pain more than point guard Siyani Chambers taking an elbow to the mouth from Bronx native Kevin Parrom. It chipped off part of his front tooth, with the game being stopped as teammate Christian Webster walked over and recovered the fragment.
“I went up in the air, came down and before I knew it, my tooth was out,’’ said Chambers.
“I think they were hoping we were going to sleep on them, and we didn’t take them lightly,’’ Parrom said. “I think that’s something New Mexico did. We weren’t going to take them lightly. … We weren’t going to sleep on them; that’s how you lose to a team like Harvard.’’
Parrom — who grew up in Highbridge, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium and the 4 train — knows about focus.
Just weeks after his grandmother died in 2011, he flew home to say his last goodbye to a mother fighting cancer. On Sept. 23, intruders broke into the home and shot him in the right leg; and even after he managed to return to the court, he suffered a season-ending broken right foot on Jan. 28. His mother died days later.
Now, the senior has worked his way into the starting lineup, and harassed Laurent Rivard — who had five 3’s Thursday vs. New Mexico — to 1-of-6 shooting with a pair of airballs. Arizona held Harvard to 28.1 percent shooting, forcing Harvard to miss its first 13 shots in taking a 17-2 lead. By the time Chambers finally hit a 3-pointer, the game was already 7:44 old — and already decided.
“Film didn’t give them as much credit as they deserved. They were tremendous on defense, their rotations, their size,’’ Chambers said. “I feel like we belong in this tournament and we can play with these teams. … What we can learn from this is the next level we have to take it to in order to win this type of game.’’