M. Hoops Continues to Shine on Saturdays

ITHACA, N.Y—Considering the way the Harvard men’s basketball team has performed on different nights during the week, the athletics department should think about revising the team’s schedule next season.

“It’s been three weeks now where we’ve played a lot better on Saturday than we did on Friday,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “We’re picking the pieces up after the loss [Friday] night and certainly played a terrific game [Saturday night].”

The rest of the team echoed the sentiments of their coach.

“We’re all-Ivy Saturday, I’m not going to lie to you,” junior guard Kevin Rogus said.

Harvard has played up to the ability of its Saturday-night opponents, beating Cornell this weekend, Yale last week, and taking Ivy League-leading Princeton to double-overtime two weeks ago.

“Every win has come down to the wire this season,” sophomore forward Matt Stehle said. “That’s kind of been our MO this season: play tough on Saturday.”

The Crimson shot 48 percent from the field last night and connected on 89 percent of its opportunities from the charity stripe, as opposed to Friday’s night’s loss to Columbia, in which Harvard shot just 40.4 and 64.3 percent in the those two categories, respectively.

Those numbers reflect a growing trend for the Crimson. In the past two weeks Harvard has shot 48.7 percent from the field on Saturdays, but only 42.4 on Fridays. In those two contests the Crimson lost by an average of 16.5 points.

Harvard’s defense also clamps down on the second nights of the Ivy weekends, holding its Saturday opponents to just 40.3 percent shooting from the field.

“You know it feels great, knowing that [our opponent] just lost to the second-worst team in the league again,” Stehle said, in reference to the victories over the Bulldogs and the Big Red.

(DON’T) LEAN ON ME

After hitting the ground hard in the game against Yale last Saturday, Rogus’ right ankle has been bothering him to the point where it was necessary for him to use crutches early in the week.

That injury slowed Rogus significantly against Columbia, as he went 0-8 from the field and had just two points—a season low. The physical Lion defense—which relies on obstructing cutters as a means to disrupt the timing of an opposing offense—forced Rogus to fight for every three-point look, rarely allowing him to set up for an uncontested shot.

And while he may have played a better game on Saturday, scoring 12 points, his ankle took another pounding.

After being knocked down hard while drawing a foul with 4:23 to go in the first half, Rogus got up slowly and was in obvious pain while limping to the free throw line. And though he missed his second free throw, Rogus managed to chase the ball down and was knocked down hard while drawing a foul—again.

Rogus nailed his two shots from the charity stripe, after which he was sent to the bench to give his ankle some rest, and was not seen again until the 1:50 mark. Rogus fought through the pain to log 23 minutes on the night.

“Coach [Sullivan] was just trying to keep me safe,” Rogus said. “I’m dying and my body is falling apart. He was just looking out for me.”

The limited time for Rogus and the loss of sophomore forward Zach Martin—sidelined with a broken hand—forced the rest of the team to take on more minutes, including junior captain Jason Norman who did not sit once the entire game.

“[Rogus has] been really gutty the last two games,” Sullivan said. “He’s going to get through the rest of the season, but after that he’s going to need some time off. It’s a serious injury.”

Despite the pain Rogus must be feeling, he says it won’t prevent him from playing for the rest of the year.

“You know I’m just going to do the same thing I did last week,” Rogus said in between laughs. “I’m going to stay off it, practice and…wrap it up. There’s not much you can do. There’s two weeks left so I’m just going to play through the pain.”

GUARD THE GUARDS

Though the Crimson may have let Cornell’s Ka’Ron Barnes and Lenny Collins score 42 of the Big Red’s 46 second half points, Harvard guarded the perimeter well—an area in which it has struggled all year.

On Friday night Columbia torched the Harvard perimeter defense, knocking down 10 three-pointers—most of which were uncontested looks.

But on Saturday Cornell had just three treys on 16 attempts, tying the mark for the second-fewest number of trifectas by an opponent this season. In the last meeting the Big Red was eight for 22 from behind the arc.

“The biggest streak we were trying to avoid [Saturday night] was the three-point shooting,” Sullivan said. “They can put their threes together in bunches and they didn’t do that tonight.”

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