Merchant Cashes In, Harvard Rolls In Ivy Opener

The Harvard men's basketball season is just nine games old, but it has already been a long year for junior Brady Merchant. The 6'4 wing guard missed much of the preseason with a leg injury and for the past two weeks, he has been slowed by a case of the flu.

This afternoon, however, it took just three and a half minutes for Merchant to make a full recovery.

Merchant scored nine points in a span of 3:38 to ignite a 19-3 second-half run as Harvard staved off Dartmouth 70-53 at Lavietes Pavilion. The Crimson spurt negated a 17-1 rally by the Big Green, who never led but closed within 38-36 earlier in the half before Merchant took over.

With the win, Harvard claimed its second consecutive victory and its fifth in a row over Dartmouth (4-4, 0-1 Ivy). The Crimson (6-3, 1-0) is now off to its best start in four years.

"I don't think anybody in our locker room expected to be 6-3 at this point with two games to go before Christmas. So we're real happy," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said.

Junior point guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman led Harvard with 14 points as the Crimson shot 42 percent for the game. More importantly, with the exception of the first eight minutes of the second half, the Crimson frustrated Dartmouth's offense at every turn. Harvard limited the Big Green to 25-percent first-half shooting and forced ten second-half turnovers, as Dartmouth continued to show post-exam period rust.

Harvard captain and defensive whiz Drew Gellert neutralized Dartmouth point guard Flinder Boyd today, holding him to just seven points (none in the first half). Entering today’s game, Boyd was the Big Green's leader in points (16.3) and assists (4.3). He was also coming off a career-high 24-point performance against Boston University last Wednesday.

"Drew watched more tape on Boyd than any guy that I can recall," Sullivan said. "He was watching tape as late as 11:30 this morning just watching [Boyd] put the ball on the floor."

"Drew played out of his mind today," Prasse-Freeman added. "He really shut Flinder down. We came out and they couldn't get good looks at the basket. Our ball pressure really messed up their offense."

With two steals today, Gellert has now posted two or more takeaways in all of the Crimson's games thus far. The senior guard also added six assists and eight points against Dartmouth, rounding out a well-balanced Harvard attack that saw seven players score eight or more.

Today marked the first time this season in which junior guard Pat Harvey did not lead Harvard in points. Harvey shot just 3-for-10 but still managed 10 points.

"First we had to convince ourselves that we didn't need to rely on [graduated senior] Dan Clemente's presence. I think we're over that hump. The next thing is convincing ourselves that we can still play good, quality basketball if Pat is indeed not having a good shooting night," Sullivan said.

The Harvard backcourt stoked the Crimson's offense in the first half. Gellert led the team in scoring with seven points and Prasse-Freeman added six as the Crimson guards continued to make a concerted effort to create scoring chances off the dribble.

"I shot so well at the start of the year that I think I was getting obsessed with the three. I realized I need to get to the free throw line more," Prasse-Freeman said. "That's really key for us, because if our guards get in the lane, we either get fouled, we get lay-ups, or we can get our big guys involved. It's critical for us."

Dartmouth, meanwhile, struggled mightily in the first half. Aside from 11 points from freshman Mike McLaren--who led all scorers today with 15 points--Dartmouth was hard pressed to hit a shot in the early going. Harvard only made matters worse, outrebounding Dartmouth 26-13 en route to a 35-19 halftime lead.

But after junior forward Sam Winter hit a short-range jumper to open the second half, Dartmouth reeled off 13 unanswered points. Jumpers by McLaren and Steve Callahan then moved the Big Green within two with 12:21 to play. But Merchant made four of the game's next five baskets. The last of those--a lay-up off a steal in the Dartmouth backcourt--pushed Harvard's lead back up to double digits at 50-39.

The Big Green never threatened again, as the Crimson made its free throws down the stretch. After averaging just 57 percent from the line before today, Harvard had its best free-throw shooting performance of the season against Dartmouth, nailing 21 of 26 attempts (81 percent).

"We had been struggling all season. I checked the stats today and we were the worst free-throw shooting team in the league coming into this game," Prasse-Freeman said. "A team that reasonably expects to contend for a league championship cannot miss free throws. It's all about concentration and mental toughness and we had that today."

The Crimson forwards continued to play well today. Tim Coleman had eight points and a game-high 11 rebounds before fouling out late in the game, while Winter added 10 points and 8 boards. Also encouraging was the effort of junior center Brian Sigafoos, who came off the bench and just missed a double-double with 9 points and 9 rebounds in 17 minutes.

Sigafoos also held his own defensively against an athletic Dartmouth frontcourt.

"He had a good presence tonight," Sullivan said. "I thought both Tim Coleman and Brian did a good job guarding the five spot, which is an important one with Dartmouth because of the passing angles and the amount of time that the five-man has the ball. And it's different because the five-man's really not in the low post. He's almost like a perimeter player."

Today's battle was the first Ivy contest of the 2001-02 season. League action does not resume for Harvard until Jan. 5, when the team meets Dartmouth for a rematch in Hanover, N.H. In the meantime, the Crimson will travel to Vermont this Tuesday to renew the America East portion of its slate.