Crimson Craves Consistency

Yale gave the Harvard women’s basketball team a sour treat on Valentine’s Day, handing the Crimson a heartbreaking 62-59 loss. Harvard (10-10, 3-4 Ivy) will try to reverse its fortunes at the comforts of Lavietes Pavilion with two must-win contests—against Columbia (10-10, 4-4) on Friday and Cornell (8-13, 3-5) on Saturday—if it hopes to keep even the faintest hopes of an Ancient Eight title alive.

Both games are rematches of previous January action and an opportunity for Harvard to revisit the weekend on which its season began to fall apart. On Jan. 30, Harvard lost a nail-biter to the Big Red 66-64 in overtime, its second loss in three league outings—one more than the past two seasons combined. The Crimson stemmed the bleeding by posting a convincing 70-58 victory against the Lions the next day.

Two losses later, Harvard has struggled to maintain its consistency and is consequently in unfamiliar territory—looking up in the standings at half of the other Ivy League teams. The Crimson’s season has been a back-and-forth battle—winning games in convincing fashion only to drop subsequent contests by close margins.

In addition to painful losses to the Bulldogs and Cornell, Harvard also dropped a grueling 73-72 contest to Penn in February—establishing Penn as the team to beat—a 63-59 loss to Northeastern in December and an 85-81 loss to Colorado back in November.

“We are doing our best to come together as a unit to find out what is causing our problems on the court,” said junior guard Rochelle Bell. “Every loss we have had has been by three or less points, which has been really hard on all of us.”

With its thrilling 75-73 victory against Liberty earlier in the season in double overtime, the Crimson has struggled in these down to the wire finishes and hopes to change this pattern heading into this final stretch of league play.

Both the Big Red and the Lions saw their last action on Valentine’s Day. Cornell shared Harvard’s fate, losing 72-62 to the Quakers, while Columbia celebrated the holiday in style, pulling out a heroic 60-56 victory against Princeton.

“Cornell and Columbia are both physical and scrappy teams,” co-captain Hana Peljto said. “Our plan this weekend is to react and adjust better to the defenses that are thrown at us than we did last time we played these teams.”

The Crimson will face two teams equally motivated to establish consistency and avenge past losses. The Lions will try to avenge their late January loss to Harvard and feed off their victory against Princeton last week. Conversely, the Big Red will look to repeat its earlier overtime victory against Harvard and at the same time bounce back after its own Valentine’s Day loss to Princeton.

“We are exactly at the midpoint of the Ivy League season and still have an opportunity to avenge every loss we’ve had so far,” Peljto said. “We feel that we still have a lot to play for and a lot to prove to each other.”