The Rahooligan: Back on the Bandwagon

I hope it’s not too late for me to jump back on the bandwagon.

After brushing off a deflating two-point loss to Princeton Friday night, the Harvard men’s basketball team came up with its most impressive performance in several years in knocking off Penn 78-75 in overtime Saturday.

Even though the weekend series against the Ivies’ top two teams resulted in a split, any Harvard fan at the sold-out Lavietes Pavilion Saturday evening would tell you that Harvard looked like the best team in the league. Hot shooting, key defensive stops and poise under pressure all erased the sour memories left from last season’s home weekend, when Princeton’s Kyle Wente hit a miracle three-point shot in the final second to deny the Crimson a sweep.

And for Harvard, beating Penn at home was not only revenge for last year’s 70-47 drubbing at the Palestra. It was also a wake-up call to the rest of the conference that Harvard won’t likely be living up to its preseason selection as just the sixth-best team in the league.

The win also won me back over as a believer in the Crimson’s true play-making ability, especially at home. I had been down on the team after last year’s stumbling finish. A horrific loss at BU earlier this season, where Harvard only managed to score 41 points and was often confused on the offensive end, further confirmed my fears that it was going to be a long season with little chance of a top-half finish in the Ancient Eight. Even two straight wins over Ivy League punching-bag Dartmouth did not convince me.

So entering the weekend, I held out very little hope of seeing anything close to last year’s Penn-Princeton weekend, when a Dan Clemente-led Crimson squad knocked out the Quakers 77-62 before losing on Wente’s prayer the next night.

If anything, I thought the only team Harvard had a chance of beating was defending league champion Princeton, who had been the weaker of the two “killer P’s” during non-conference play. Penn, on the other hand, was (and still is) the feel-good mid-major story of the year. Its victories over big-time programs Georgia Tech, Iowa State, Villanova and Temple, along with close losses to Illinois and St. Joe’s, had given the Quakers national celebrity and even a few votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Harvard, on the other hand, fell in around No. 200 in the national RPI rankings.

To Penn’s credit, the Quakers knew Saturday’s matchup would be a tough game.

“We always have a difficult time up here,” Penn Coach Fran Dunphy said. “We would have been surprised if we came up here and hammered Harvard.”

Good teams show their true colors in big games. For the Crimson, no two games are bigger than hosting Penn and Princeton. The close loss followed by the close overtime win answered three questions that had been raised about Harvard this season:

(1) Patrick Harvey is without a doubt a big-game player. Where Clemente was a guaranteed 25-point scorer in big games, Harvey, playing at the tough two-guard position, has emerged as Harvard’s most clutch player. Last season, as a sophomore, Harvey won two Ivy contests for Harvard—against Dartmouth and Columbia—in the closing seconds.

This season, Harvey has been the Crimson’s leading scorer in all but two games. His only mistake this weekend may have been a turnover in the last minute of regulation versus Penn, which allowed the Quakers’ Andrew Toole to hit a fast-break layup and tie the game. Otherwise, Harvey had 43 combined points this weekend, and his stretch of 15 straight points put the Crimson, and the crowd, back into the game.

Harvey is such a cool customer that, when asked after the Penn game how the team responded to Penn’s 14-0 run in the second half, he replied, “They had a 14-0 run on us? Really?”

(2) Harvard does have a bench. Prior to this season, and even up to this past weekend, the Crimson’s depth has been (and could yet be) a question mark. Last year’s sole freshman, Kam Walton, is no longer with the team, and the four freshmen Sullivan brought in this season were largely unknown. Harvard’s only proven bench players were junior guard Brady Merchant and last year’s starting center, junior Brian Sigafoos.

While Merchant came in as usual and provided a lift in both games, it clearly wasn’t going to be enough. Penn and Princeton both have the deepest benches in the Ivies, and their styles of play can quickly fatigue starters. Against the Tigers, Sullivan stuck with his top seven, but on Saturday night all the healthy bodies came out on the floor and made an impact.

Jason Norman, a freshman guard who’s only scored 14 points this season but has his own cheering section, spelled junior point guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman at the end of the first half. He played 11 minutes of solid defense, and even had a nifty spin move in the lane for a quick two points.

More significantly, Sullivan decided to go with a small lineup and sat centers Tim Coleman and Sigafoos in favor of junior starting forward Sam Winter and a backup freshman, Graham Beatty. “It was an interesting position to put Beatty in,” Sullivan said. “He really did an excellent job.”

That is an understatement. Beatty played 18 minutes, including all of overtime, and completely befuddled two of the top players in the league, Penn forwards Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong. Those two were limited to 11-of-29 shooting, and turned the ball over five times. Beatty also had a big steal in overtime when the Quakers were attempting to tie up the score.

(3) Penn and Princeton can be out-coached. Sullivan deserves a lot of credit for Saturday’s win. He always seems to have the Crimson prepared for Penn and Princeton at home.

Given that Harvard is such a tough team to beat in Lavietes when it is shooting well, Sullivan’s job is to maneuver the X’s and O’s to get Harvey, Prasse-Freeman and Winter in the right spots. Save for the first half against Princeton, the Crimson shot over 47 percent from the field over the weekend.

“When we get to league play, we all know each other,” Sullivan said.

Certainly the familiarity paid off this weekend. When the Tigers decided to go to a small lineup, and stick with their slow, boring, pass-heavy, backdoor offense, Sullivan did the same, going with four guards and a small forward for most of the second half. And while Sullivan did not deploy his bench at all—he calls playing Princeton a “learned experience”—he managed to use the clock and substitution well so that Harvard did outplay Princeton in the second half, despite coming up just short.

Sullivan then quickly switched gears for the up-tempo, high-scoring Quakers, who boast the best inside-outside game in the conference. He benched Prasse-Freeman and Coleman at the right times, and his gamble with Beatty paid off.

Harvey, Merchant and captain Drew Gellert were getting the ball in places where they could either drive or shoot comfortably.

Meanwhile, Penn’s strategy remained puzzling. Their much-maligned backup guard, David Klatsky, played 32 minutes and launched ill-advised threes. Onyekwe and Archibong looked tired near the end of the game and came up short on some big shots. Dunphy also kept important substitutes like center Adam Chubb and guard Duane King on the bench.

With those questions answered, and hopefully settled for the Crimson for the stretch run, it will be a fun Ivy season after all. One of these times, Harvard’s going to beat both Penn and Princeton in the same weekend.

The rematch with these two is scheduled for mid-February. I’ll be driving the bandwagon.