M. Basketball Notebook: A Tale of Two Halves For Rogus, M. Hoops

If ever there was an example of the difference a halftime break can make in play, it was Saturday’s matchup between the Harvard men’s basketball team and New Hampshire.

And as Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said, it was junior guard Kevin Rogus who served to stabilize his team in its failed second-half comeback attempt.

“That’s just a sign of an experienced guy,” Sullivan said. “Kevin just said ‘somebody has to make some shots.’ I think it was just great to see him come out of actually having a mild concussion, I think, to really generate some offense. Certainly for Kevin, he needed that badly. The team needed that badly. It was a great thing to see.”

After scoring eight points in the first half, Rogus finished with a career-high 27, matching the Crimson’s entire first-half production.

Rogus was particularly lethal from behind the three-point arc, shooting 5-11 (45 percent). The rest of the team managed to knock down just 2-of-10 treys.

“That’s just the way I play,” Rogus said. “My role is out there to make lots of plays. I just try and do that as best I can.”

The Rogus heroics began in earnest after Harvard took a timeout with 10:56 to play trailing 55-41. 8:19 later, the Wildcats led by just five. Spearheading the Crimson comeback was Rogus, who scored 17 points and had a steal and three of his five three-pointers during the stretch.

Rogus has shot better and increased his scoring in each successive game this season, beginning with a 3-12, 13-point performance in the season opener against Fairfield and continuing through a 4-13, 16-point outing Tuesday at Holy Cross to Friday’s 8-17 showing. Rogus has led Harvard in scoring in each game.

Rogus’ ability to find the net so often is especially important considering the Crimson’s ever-changing back-court situation. Four different guards played at least 15 minutes for Harvard, compared to just two for UNH.

Stopping Sturgill

As has often been mentioned, the loss of sophomore center Brian Cusworth for the beginning of the season has drastically reduced Harvard’s inside strength. So the knowledge that the Wildcats’ leading scorer (14 points per game) and rebounder (6.3 boards per game) entering the game was 6’8, 250-lb. center Ben Sturgill was particularly troublesome for Harvard.

And since the Crimson spent nearly the entire game in man-to-man defense—rather than the 1-2-2 zone that was so effective against Holy Cross—to spark a comeback, the Sturgill threat was expected to put extra pressure on junior center Graham Beatty, who is also listed at 6’8 but weighs only 225 lbs.

“We put a lot of our efforts, quite honestly, into Sturgill and [Marcus] Bullock [10.7 ppg entering the game], their two best players,” Sullivan said. “And their lines were pretty average for the two of them.”

Sturgill finished with eight points and five rebounds, while Bullock had nine points, all on three-pointers.

But concentrating on the two star players left other threats—including forward Ronnie Dennis—wide open. Dennis was even more impressive than Rogus from three-point range, shooting 6 for 8 on treys and finishing with 26 points, four rebounds and three steals.

Overall, UNH shot 58.8 percent from behind the arc, 77.8 percent in the first half.

“That really is one of the poorest three-point field goal defenses that we have probably had in the past decade,” Sullivan said.

Early Exits

While Harvard may have put itself in a tough situation at halftime with its poor offensive performance, it was its foul trouble near the end of the game that was particularly troublesome.

Less than eight minutes into the second half, Harvard had already committed five fouls. With 3:09 to play, it put the Wildcats in the double bonus as sophomore guard Michael Beal committed his fifth foul, taking away Harvard’s most consistent player with the Crimson only trailing by five.

Sullivan turned to junior guard David Giovacchini, who himself fouled out with 35.5 seconds remaining and the Crimson trailing by four.

“Obviously I have full confidence in everybody. I have full confidence in Dave, Jimmy [Goffredo], Ko [Yada] and Jason [Norman],” Beal said. “But you know, as a player and as a man, you really want to be out there and be able to do the best that you can to help out the team. And to make tick-tack fouls and put myself in a position where I’m not an option for coach to use, that’s really not what I need to do. I need to work on getting out of foul trouble.”

—Staff writer Evan R. Johnson can be reached at erjohns@fas.harvard.edu.