Reversal of Fortune

Ah, the irony in life.

The Harvard men's basketball team's bus broke down last Saturday up in Hanover, N.H., after the squad's ninth straight loss. OK, so that made for another annoying occurrence in what has been a very frustrating season for the men.

Luck had it that the women's basketball team was also up at Dartmouth. So the men took the women's team's bus. And luckily for the women, the men's hockey team had a game up at Dartmouth that night, so the women were also able to escape.

And by the time the men's hockey game had finished, the bus company had sent up a spare vehicle, so everyone was able to go home for the pure joy of studying for finals. For those scoring at home, Saturday marked the second straight bus mishap (the same piece of scrap metal, nonetheless) for the icemen--their bus broke down in Vermont after a game in Clarkson, and they had to wait two and a half hours until a spare vehicle was delivered.

Heck, who wouldn't want to wait in a bus without heat in a part of the country that has almost as many moose crossing signs as humans?

[It is a wonder why Harvard couldn't schedule its January athletic contests at home, especially since other schools have long since finished with the hell that most of us are still in.]

Anyway, this season has seen a reversal of fortune for the two basketball programs.

Yes, the men's 9-17 record (5-9 Ivy) last season wasn't going to put it into the NCAA Tournament, but it did prove to be a step in the right direction after two consecutive 6-20 seasons.

A lot of people expected this year's team to improve tremendously, and it still might. And it still may work itself back into a winning way once February begins, but it doesn't take a Harvard student to figure out that a 3-12 record (1-3 Ivy) so far is, well, disappointing. The Crimson was 6-9 (2-2 Ivy) going into exams last year.

Harvard tries hard and usually plays evenly for the first half. In the current losing streak, the team has been tied at the break four times and ahead three times, but each game the same demons come up and swallow the Crimson.

The opposition has been able to make adjustments to Harvard's attack, which has led to many Crimson turnovers and thus more points for the other teams. The Crimson hasn't been able to recover until the proverbial floodgates have opened--a 10-20 point deficit almost always seems to open up within a five-minute span.

"I think it's a combination of adjustments--we're not a multidimensional team," Coach Frank Sullivan said after Harvard's 73-65 loss at Dartmouth. "We've got a very straightforward way that we play the game based on the capabilities of our guys."

"We don't react to adjustments because we don't have as much creativity as we might hope," he continued. "Sometimes when adjustments are made it becomes a little bit difficult for our guys."

The exam break is the best thing for the players. They can rest up and come out strong in February.

What they need most is a shot of confidence, which means they should forget about the past and come into their next games with a new approach. They have to come out of halftime thinking about how they can win the game and not about how they might lose it.

And even if the second half of the season isn't too successful, the team has a good core of young players, including sophomore Kyle Snowden, juniors Michael Gilmore and Darren Rankin and freshman Michael Scott.

Bouncing Back

Back to the bus story. The women's basketball team took the vehicle the men's hockey team uses, and at this point last year, the icemen were 11-3-2.

Last year at this point, the women's basketball team was 2-11 and now it is 10-4 (2-1 Ivy--tied for first place), even after a tough 81-77 defeat at the hands of the Big Green.

If you're stumped on your next final exam, write about the symbolism.

Captain Tammy Butler has been up to her old tricks, and her first-rate play has been complemented by freshman Allison Feaster, who was last year's South Carolina Gatorade Player of the Year. Harvard has a powerful one-two punch and has the supporting cast to pick up the squad's play.

While teams last year dropped the Crimson by guarding Butler, they now have to contend with Butler and Feaster, who has garnered every Ivy League Rookie of the Week award except one (Harvard didn't have a game that week).

"We've had great confidence," Butler said after Saturday's game in which she broke the all-time Harvard scoring record. "There has not been one game that we've had this year that we think we should have lost."

And other teams have taken notice. Dartmouth is the defending Ivy League champion and Big Green coach Chris Wielgus labeled the Crimson "a top team."

The Crimson has the confidence, and hopefully the experience it has gained from its first 14 games will carry over into the second half of the season. An Ivy League title is certainly within reach.

If the Ancient Eight crown comes to Cambridge the Crimson won't have to worry too much about buses breaking down. It's the planes that might be a problem.

Ah, the irony.