Second-Half Surge by BU Takes Down Crimson

For the reeling Harvard women’s basketball team, the hits—and the bricks—keep on coming.

A scoring drought of more than eight minutes against hometown rival Boston University sent the Crimson to its fifth consecutive loss, a 70-59 decision last night at Lavietes Pavilion.

The Crimson (2-6) shot just 28. 9 percent in the second frame, missed its first four free throw attempts of the half, and saw five lay-ups rim out in the midst of a failed second half comeback.

“Great shots. What can I say? We couldn’t have gotten better shots,” said Harvard head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. “We got the shots we wanted, and a lot of them were in and out. There’s a basketball god somewhere that’s testing me—otherwise she would have put those in.”

The rims weren’t always unkind to the Crimson, which put together its finest first half of the year against the Terriers (6-2). Harvard shot 46.2 percent from the field and was in the lead for all but 20 seconds of the opening half. Laura Robinson’s three-pointer—one of four on the night—that beat the shot clock put the Crimson up 32-20 with 2:23 remaining in the first.

Those three points, however, were the last Harvard would add to its total until Robinson—who notched a career-high 24 points—nailed another triple at 13:41 in the second half. Over those eight minutes, Harvard shot 0-12 from the field.

BU, meanwhile, scored 22 points and hit four three pointers to turn the Crimson’s most dominant first half performance into a second half nightmare.

“I’m upset with how we started the second half,” said Delaney-Smith. “In the first five to seven minutes of the second half, we started slow. That was a disappointment to us­—we didn’t want that to happen. And that’s what lost the game.”

Harvard’s first half effort gave the Crimson its only halftime lead of the season at 32-28, as Robinson shot a perfect 5-of-5 from the floor en route to 13 first half points. The Crimson outrebounded the Terriers 20-15 and held BU to just 34.5 percent shooting from the field.

“I was pleased with our first half,” Delaney-Smith said. “I thought we came out and stuck to the game plan and did what we wanted to do.”

In the second half, however, the Crimson was once again the victim of inconsistency—a problem that has plauged Harvard throughout its five-game losing streak. The Crimson’s stalwart defensive effort of the first half evaporated after the break.

BU heated up as well, torching the nets with a 66.7 percent clip from the field on 14-of-21 shooting from the field and 80.0 percent from the line.

“They just got hot,” Robinson said of the second half. “We scouted them, we knew they were a perimeter team—but we can’t do much if we’re going to stand there. Our intensity was a little lower when we came out [after the half]. We can’t let that happen.”

The Terriers quickly erased the 32-28 first half deficit with seven consecutive points from guard Katie Meinhardt, who finished with 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting. Meinhardt’s three with 15:00 left gave BU a 40-32 lead, and Kasey Devine’s jumper at 13:55 put the icing on the Terriers’ game-altering 22-0 run.

The Crimson responded with a 7-2 run of its own to pull within four at 46-42 midway through the second half, but untimely misses and uncharacteristically poor foul shooting left Harvard in too deep a hole for a late-game comeback.

Each time Harvard penetrated to create an open layup, the ball trickled in and spun back out again, often into the hands of BU defenders.

“All of our shots went in and out,” Robinson said. “And they hit a lot of theirs. We made a nice run, but our shots just didn’t fall.”

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.