Silly Putty

"You know, maybe that's where we are right now," Harvard men's basketball Coach Peter Roby was saying after the Crimson's season-ending six-point loss to Dartmouth last Wednesday. "Maybe we're just a few points short."

Roby and the cagers now have a long off-season to ponder the 1986-'87 campaign just past--a year when time and again the Crimson came up just a few points short.

Harvard lost two of its first three games--to Lehigh and Boston College--by a single point. In the B.C. game, the Crimson failed to commit an intentional foul in the closing seconds as the Eagles dribbled off the clock.

At home against Cornell, the cagers lost when Co-Captain Keith Webster tried to call a time-out after Harvard had exhausted its allotment. In the ensuing flurry of confusion and technicals, the game slipped away.

Overall, the Crimson lost an astounding 10 games by seven points or less. And although Harvard finished the year at 9-17 (4-10 Ivy), it was only outscored by a cumulative total of 13 points.

This was a team that seemed to show abundant promise at the start of the season, promise which seemed to start fulfilling itself when the cagers opened the Ivy campaign by sweeping Penn and Princeton at home for only the fourth time ever.

But that weekend of euphoria--highlighted by a Webster last-second overtime jumper which capped an improbable 17-point comeback against eventual league champ Penn--proved to be the high point. Rather than bringing continued success, though, the rest of the season proved to be one long downhill slide.

Meanwhile, nearly every cager was having his most productive season at Harvard. Webster averaged over 16 points a game--up from his previous high of 11.6. Co-Captain Arne Duncan led the Crimson with nearly 17 points per contest, well above his previous high of 11.7. Junior forward Kyle Dodson improved his field goal percentage from 33.5 to 53.5 and scoring average from 6.1 to 9.5. Sophomore guard Mike Gielen nearly doubled his scoring average.

Only sophomore forwards Neil Phillips (who missed one-third of the season with academic problems and the football season) and Fred Schernecker suffered significant declines.

And yet, the Crimson stumbled, finishing only three games better than last year's woeful 6-20 edition. The Harvard party line on its difficulties this season pointed time and again to the Crimson's youth.

Two seniors, two juniors, and two sophomores drew the most starting assignments for Harvard. The next three players off the bench were also sophomores, but the Crimson still does not strike one as an exceptionally young team.

The questions then remain: why did Harvard falter, and what will happen next year? Surely part of the Crimson's problem was just plain bad luck. When you lose that many games by just a few points, you're almost certainly getting more than your share of bad bounces.

Harvard was also a very inconsistent team this year. After blowing out Brown on the road in early February, the Crimson lost to the same uninspiring Bruins at home two weekends later. After a tough upset of league-contender Cornell in the last week of the season, Harvard came back the next night to fall at Columbia.

Finally, youth--both of players and of second-year coach Roby--probably did play a role. But this is a problem, frankly, which seems to linger on after the 1986-'87 season passes into the history books. Webster and Duncan were excellent and complementary leaders for the Crimson this year, and it's hard to see Dodson and Bill Mohler--next year's only seniors--doing a better job.

The keys seem to lie in the continued maturation of Gielen and Phillips. The former should move smoothly into Webster's play-making role and has all-Ivy potential. The latter will have to come back from a disappointing sophomore season and the academic problems which cut it short, but he too can be among the league elite.

Mohler may yet turn into the fine center he was touted as three years ago. Sophomore guard-forward Tedd Evers, if he plays like he did in the final games of the season, could well find himself a major contributor and even a starter. Freshman guard Brian Mackay may also be tapped for a starting role.

And then there is the coach. Near the end of the season, a writer from a major area paper made an interesting comment. "Next year will really tell if Roby can coach," the writer said. "He's going to have the talent here--it will be interesting to see if he can take Harvard anywhere."

Tune in next winter.