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After Calling Free Beacon 'Fake News,' Harvard Falls to Rival Yale, Putting End to Failed Season

Harvard Crimson coach Tommy Amaker during a loss / AP
March 12, 2017

Not long after including the Washington Free Beacon on a list of "False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical 'News' Sources," Harvard fell to rival Yale in Saturday's Ivy League tournament.

The research guide cites Free Beacon for "bias," while omitting liberal counterparts Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo.

But Harvard got what was coming to it in the end.

Yale led from the start against rival Harvard and held that lead until the final buzzer in a 73-71 victory.

Harvard beat Yale handily twice in the past month but failed to come out on top when it mattered most in Saturday's Ivy League tournament, dashing the team's hopes of making another appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

The postseason hopes would have already expired any other season, but thanks to the Ivy League's decision to have a conference tournament for the first time in its history, Harvard was given a chance to salvage the season and earn a postseason berth despite failing to win the conference's regular season title.

That chance now goes to Yale, who represented the Ivy League well in last year's NCAA Tournament with a upset victory over Baylor in the first round. To make it, Yale will have to beat Princeton in the conference championship on Sunday.

Harvard, favored to beat Yale, had represented the Ivy League in the tournament the previous four years and failed to ever advance to its second weekend of games.

Harvard trailed the entire game against Yale despite 28 points from freshman Bryce Aiken.

Fans were given hope when Harvard managed to erase a 13 point second half deficit to tie the game at 60 a piece with just over five minutes to go, but Yale took back control of the game with a rim-rocking dunk from Miye Oni, 18 points, and never let Harvard tie it up again.

Harvard players saw the regular season as a disappointment, finishing with back-to-back losses to Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. They saw the conference tournament as a place for redemption.

"I guess I am happy the tournament is in place now because we didn’t really finish out the regular season how we had hoped for and in the old format we would not be going to the (NCAA) tournament," Harvard point guard Siyani Chambers said before the game against Yale. "We’re fortunate that the tournament has been put in place since we didn’t have the outcome that we wanted to in the regular season."

Princeton went undefeated against the Ivy League and is favored to beat Yale in Sunday's championship.

Harvard has also fell behind fellow Ivy League schools when it comes to academics—it is currently ranked fourth behind Columbia, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It is unclear whether the fates decreed that Harvard would lose after its dis of the Free Beacon.