M. Hoops Succumbs To Same Old Pattern

The season is just three games old, but it seems the Harvard men’s basketball team has already established a modus operandi: fall behind by double digits in the first half and come back to make a game of it before ultimately succumbing.

But in contrast to the Crimson’s first two losses—which came to Fairfield and Holy Cross, both of which advanced to postseason play last season—Harvard (0-3) didn’t even take a late lead in losing to New Hampshire 81-75 in what on paper appeared to be a winnable game Saturday afternoon.

The third of Marcus Bullock’s trio of three-pointers gave the Wildcats (2-2) their biggest lead at 34-14 with 5:13 remaining in the first half.

But the Crimson responded with an 11-0 run of its own to narrow the gap heading into the break.

In the second half, junior guard Kevin Rogus—who had suffered a mild concussion earlier in the game—nearly brought Harvard back by himself, scoring 19 of his game- and career-high 27 points after halftime.

Rogus’ final points came on a pair of free throws that brought the Crimson within four at 79-75 with 25 seconds to play, but that was as close as Harvard would come as Shejdie Childs sank two free throws for the final margin.

Rogus has set a career high in points in every game this season.

After sophomore guard Michael Beal opened the scoring by hitting the second of two free throws, UNH reeled off a 10-0 run.

“As a starter and as a starting team, we take that upon ourselves,” Beal said. “We have to establish some sort of line of toughness and in this game, they established it and we just had to meet it and that’s why we keep getting off to slow starts. We as starters really have to pick up and instead of making the team climb uphill to get back in the game and show our character like we’ve done, we have to start it off and really establish...that this is our home court and establish that we are going to win and then take it from there.”

Harvard coach Frank Sullivan tried to stop the bleeding just 2:46 into the game by pulling junior captain Jason Norman, Rogus and junior forward Graham Beatty, but nothing seemed to work early on for the Crimson.

After Harvard turned the ball over on five straight possessions, Ronnie Dennis—who led the Wildcats with a career-high 26 points and shot 6 of 8 from behind the arc—made two free throws to push UNH’s advantage to 18 at 24-6 midway through the first half.

“Clearly, we shot ourselves in the foot to start the game,” Sullivan said. “With an older team, there’s usually a rudder somewhere. There’s a low-post scorer. There’s a guy who’s going to get an assist, a guy who’s going to make a shot. I don’t think at that point in time anybody knew where the rudder was going to be to get us back on track.”

The Wildcats connected on 78 percent of their three-pointers and made all 11 of their free throws in the first half.

The Crimson had beaten UNH five straight times dating back to a 77-68 Wildcat win on February 1, 1994.

Harvard has dropped the first three games of its season for the first time since the 1991-1992 campaign, Sullivan’s first as Harvard’s head man.

Sophomore forward Matt Stehle led the Crimson with six rebounds and three steals (both career highs) and had Harvard’s only block. All three steals and the rejection came in a four-minute stretch in the middle of the first half.

Junior guard David Giovacchini added a career- and team-high five assists, while freshman guard Ko Yada chipped in an assist and a steal in the first three minutes of action of his career.

The Crimson did contain forward Ben Sturgill, UNH’s leading scorer entering the game, holding him to eight points on 1-of-5 shooting.

“We put a lot of our efforts, quite honestly, into Sturgill and Bullock, their two best players, during the course of the week and their lines were pretty average for the two of them,” Sullivan said. “Unfortunately, a couple guys snuck up on us.”

Bullock finished with nine points, but Craig Walls poured in 14—six of them consecutively early in the second half—and pulled down eight rebounds for the Wildcats.

—Staff writer Alan G. Ginsberg can be reached at aginsber@fas.harvard.edu.