W. Basketball Deports Slovakia, 90-80

This weekend Harvard basketball fans were treated to a sneak peak of what will be an exciting show on campus during the winter. The coming attraction is the Harvard women's basketball team which took to the floor at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday night to battle Roto Banska Bystrica of Slovakia.

Wearing its best diplomatic hat, the Crimson exchanged gifts with the opposing players before the contest and broke bread with them afterwards. In between, however, Harvard was taking care of business en route to a 90-80 victory.

While the game was an exhibition and does not count statistically for the Crimson's season, it was a good indicator of what folks can expect to see from Harvard. It was also a chance for Harvard to test its new offense and debut a couple of new starters.

"I liked what I saw tonight," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "It was the first game with an entirely new offensive system, and I was very proud."

The Crimson started off slowly and fell behind early 11-2 as the players settled into the new system. After a timeout, however, junior forward Rose Janowski recorded Harvard's first field goal on a strong driving layup.

The Crimson continued to chip away at the deficit throughout the first half until co-captain and two-time defending Ivy League Player of the Year Allison Feaster put Harvard ahead for the first time on a three-point play with just over five minutes left in the period.

Harvard took a tenuous 45-44 lead into halftime and could not shake the Slovakian team until late in the second half when Feaster and senior guard Alison Seanor combined on several nice plays to put the game out of reach.

"[The offense] has only been in two weeks, and none of our scoring plays for guards are in yet," Delaney-Smith said.

As expected, Feaster paced the Crimson with 30 points, 15 rebounds and five assists. Seanor had a good all-around game as well, chipping in eight points and dishing out seven assists. Junior guard Suzie Miller had 13 points for Harvard, and sophomore forward Courtney Egelhoff came off the bench to contribute 11 points to the cause.

Janowski and co-captain Megan Basil were the starters replacing the Crimson's only two graduated players, Jessica Gelman and Kelly Black. Janowski kept the Crimson in the game early with good moves in the post. She finished with six points and six rebounds.

Basil took the reigns of the new offense as if she had been running it for more than just two weeks. The veteran field general finished with nine points, six of those on three-pointers, three assists and three steals.

Overall Harvard seemed comfortable with the new offense, which is based on the triangle offense made famous by the NBA's Chicago Bulls. The Crimson still needs to work out some glitches, but that should happen naturally with more playing time.

Harvard's defensive effort was uncharacteristically sluggish, however, as evidenced by the 80 points the Crimson allowed.

"Our defense definitely needs work," Miller said. "We should never, ever let a team score 80 points on us."

Harvard opens its regular season this Saturday night at Army and plays its first home game on November 20th. Look for a complete season outlook in the special basketball preview section of this Friday's paper.