M. Cagers Survive 2nd Half Collapse

If Notre Dame has the luck of the Irish and Boston College has the prayers of the Catholic Church, then Harvard has the curse of the second half collapse.

Joe Restic and his gang have made it infamous, and now the Harvard men's basketball team has followed suit.

Last night at Briggs Cage the Crimson survived its own version of the second half collapse and fought off pesky St. Mary's to win its first exhibition game, 73-65.

Although the Crimson went into the locker room at halftime with a comfortable 18-point lead, the game was far from over.

In fact, it had just begun.

After the cheerleaders came back to the sidelines, the Huskies slowly nipped at the Crimson's lead.

With 4:33 left in the game, Huskie forward William Njoku knotted the score at 61, with an in-your-face tomahawk slam.

Fortunately for the Crimson faithful, the dunk shocked the listless Harvard squad back to life.

On its next possession, Harvard pounded the ball into senior center Arturo Llopis. Looking like Kevin McHale, Llopis executed a beautiful up and under move and sank the shot.

This basket sparked an 11-0 run for the Johnnies that put the game out of the Huskies' reach.

"In the second half, St. Mary's came out a lot stronger," Captain Tyler Rullman said. "They wanted to show that they were not that bad."

St. Mary's came out of the intermission much more aggressive. Its defense picked up its intensity, forcing the Crimson into 15 turnovers, and numerous traveling violations.

The Huskies also swept the boards much better than they had in the first half, grabbing eight offensive rebounds in the second 20 minutes compared to three in the first.

At the same time Harvard looked flat--flat as a Jeff Reardon curveball. The Crimson looked out of sync on offense, and tired on defense.

"Having only twelve days of practice hurt us in handling big leads," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said. "The next couple of weeks we will work on how to maintain the tempo throughout the game."

Despite its second-half collapse, however, the Crimson went home feeling pretty good about its performance last night in the chilly Briggs Cage. Harvard did pull out the win and sent our buddies form the north back to Canada (baseball maybe, basketball get real) with a big "L" in their pocket.

"Tonight was a good barometer for us" Sullivan said. "We need to work on some things, but I feel good about our performance."

The Crimson seemed to suffer from a mild case of schizophrenia. The team's performance in the first half had little resemblance to its play in the second.

"In the second half we were quite sluggish," Rullman said. "But we had a good first half."

In the first half, defense was the word. Harvard's swarming man-to-man simply befuddled the Canadian folks, rendering their offense anemic.

St. Mary's did not score its first hoop until more than four minutes into the game on a three point shot by guard Richard Sullivan. Its potent offense could not tally again until 11:40 in the first half, cutting Harvard's lead to a mere 19-6.

In addition, Harvard controlled the glass. St. Mary's had virtually no second chances.

A simple formula developed for the Huskies: a missed shot, and right back on defense. Harvard went into halftime with a 21 to 11 edge in rebounds, seven to three on the offensive end.

The Crimson showed more signs (11 turnovers at half) of rust on the offensive end, but still could do basically what it wanted.

Junior point guard Tarik Campbell (five points, three assists) returning from his year off and Rullman (16 points) led the way in the first half.

St. Mary's never found an answer to the lightning quick, slashing point guard.

With 1:33 left in the first half Campbell blew by two defenders, jumped out of the building, and laid in an off balance shot while being fouled. That was just one of many great plays by the junior guard.

"I felt comfortable out there," Campbell said. "I tried to come out and pick up where I left off from two years ago. You never really lose your confidence."

When Campbell was not wreaking havoc, Rullman was raining jumpers on St. Mary's head. He went into the intermission with sixteen points on five of eight shooting.

Unfortunately, the second-half collapse was just about to rear its ugly head.