Home, Sweet Briggs

"You are looking live at Briggs Cage on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tonight, a big doubleheader, as the Harvard men's and women's basketball teams play their home openers of the 1988-89 season."

Brent Musburger couldn't have said it any better--last night was opening night at Briggs Cage, but the initial excitement and anticipation which accompanies every home opener was reduced to a very sour taste.

The women's basketball team opened the show by scoring a team-record 106 points against a hapless Division III Smith team, 106-34. Believe it or not, the score was closer than the game.

The men's basketball team wasn't so lucky...no, the men's squad wasn't as good. New Hampshire, which had won only eight games in the last two seasons, stunned the Crimson, 93-74. Believe it or not, the score was closer than the game in this one, too.

Women's B-Ball Sparkles

Junior Heidi Kosh (22 points, seven steals, six assists) played brilliantly. Her early-season performance has quieted any doubts concerning her ability to lead the vaunted Crimson fastbreak this season.

"The first five or six minutes of a game usually set the mental tone for the rest of the contest," Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney Smith said, "and tonight we got a lot of nice stuff early."

Early and often.

Early, as in the Crimson's first basket only eight seconds into the game on a feed from Kosh which set up an easy layup for Co-Captain Sarah Duncan.

Often, as in the last eight-and-a-half minutes of the first half--in which the Crimson outscored Smith, 22-2--including a beautiful finger-roll by freshman Heather Harris, to put the game out of reach by half-time, 50-14.

"I'm trying to play a faster game," Delaney Smith said. "I want the team to learn how to react to changes in possession, like we did tonight, in order to capitalize on our speed."

Men's B-Ball Outgunned

"I'm not making any excuses," Harvard men's basketball Coach Peter Roby said. "Every loss is painful, especially with the total break-downs, offensively, defensively and mentally, we had tonight."

The Wildcats created numerous problems for the Crimson. Harvard's guards, Co-Captain Mike Gielen and Dana Smith, looked flustered most of the game after receiving no help from the forwards in trying to break a tenacious New Hampshire zone press. The Crimson finished with 26 turnovers, and even when it did break the press, the squad connected on only 36 percent of its shots, mostly because of poor shot selection.

The Wildcat frontline, Chris Perkins, Eric Thielen and Dave Marshall, dominated Harvard--scoring 40 points and swiping 24 rebounds. Only freshman Eric Carter could claim to have played a solid game up front for the Crimson, scoring 15 points and grabbing eight rebounds in only 14 minutes of playing time.

"I'm expecting inconsistency in the big guys early in the season," Roby said."[Ron] Mitchell, Carter, [Fred] Schernecker and[Mal] Hollensteiner haven't played a lot ofminutes and they have to have some experience anddevelop a game mentality before I can expect anykind of consistency. Hopefully, during the Ivyseason, we won't be talking about inconsistent bigmen."

More than anything, last night showed a markedcontrast between the Harvard women's and men'sbasketball teams.

Buoyed by two Ivy League titles in the lastthree years, Kathy Delaney Smith's squad has thetalent and the confidence, which comes with awinning tradition, to play flawless and aggressivebasketball.

The Harvard men's basketball team has the samehigh quality of talent, but last night's gameillustrated all too well that Harvard needs acouple of big wins over top-notch teams to developthe same winning attitude which has infected thewomen's basketball team