Go 3-0 on the road to close the season, and you're the Ivy League champions. Seemed simple enough, but the Tigers knew it wouldn't be that easy. Yale proved it with a 71-66 win over Princeton, putting Harvard a half-game in front of Princeton as the season winds down.

If Harvard defeats Cornell tomorrow night in Cambridge, Princeton must win each of its last two games just to force a one-game playoff with the Crimson next Sunday in Philadelphia. Princeton will head to Brown for a 6 p.m. game Saturday before visiting Penn Tuesday.

Princeton never led in the game at Yale, falling behind by as many as 14 points late in the first half. The Tigers cut it to one with 3:07 to go in the game, but the go-ahead points proved elusive.

T.J. Bray led Princeton with a game-high 17 points, with Will Barrett adding in 16 and Denton Koon 13.

The Bulldogs shot 70 percent in the first half, including going 6 of 8 from 3-point range to build up the double-digit lead. That cooled somewhat in the second half, but only relatively, as the Bulldogs still shot 50 percent after the break to finish at 60.5 percent for the night.

It was the highest shooting percentage for a Princeton opponent since Columbia shot 66.7 percent in a 64-56 Lions win on Jan. 12, 2007 in Manhattan.

It even outdid Yale's performance in Jadwin Gym last month, a night that ended Princeton's 21-game home Ivy League winning streak. The Bulldogs shot 54.8 percent that night in a 69-65 Bulldogs win that unfolded much the same way as Friday night's game.

Yale led by as many as eight points in that one, shooting 65 percent before the break. The hole might have been just too deep for Princeton this time.

Despite shooting 63.6 percent after the break, Princeton was still playing catch-up into the final minute. Princeton had three tries in the final 100 seconds at what would have been a game-tying 3-pointer, but none fell.

Postgame notes

• Princeton was outrebounded 21-18 in this one, though the Tigers limited the Bulldogs to only three offensive rebounds.

• Ian Hummer tied his career high with seven assists, all without a turnover.

• It was the first time since Ian Hummer's freshman year that Princeton lost a game in which he scored fewer than 10 points. That breaks a streak of 11 games, all over the last three seasons, in which Princeton won despite Hummer not scoring at least 10.

• Yale has won three of the last four meetings with Princeton.

• Princeton has been to Lee Amphitheater twice since the buzzer-beater from Douglas Davis '12 to send Princeton to the NCAA Tournament and has come away with a loss in both visits.