Injuries Playing Key Role in Men's Basketball's Strategy

The injury report produced some good and bad news for the Harvard men’s basketball team yesterday.

Junior guard Jim Goffredo, who had surgery for a staph infection last Thursday and missed Saturday’s win against Albany, practiced yesterday and will be back in the starting lineup for the Crimson’s meeting with Colgate at Lavietes Pavilion tonight.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “I think there will be a little bit of rust, but he’ll be fine. Jimmy’s just happier that it didn’t get any further than it did. It turns out that the doctors are telling us that he played in great pain in the game against LIU, which he masked quite well.

Harvard center Brian Cusworth, however, had an inauspicious meeting with the medical staff and will not see action for the remainder of December. The 7’0 junior fractured his hand in the first half of the loss to Central Connecticut and has missed all four games since.

“Talking to him today, it seems that the preference is to leave him in that cast until we return from SMU,” Sullivan said.

Cusworth had hoped to be back in the lineup for the Boston College contest, but the doctors did not give him the green light to play this week. The Crimson meets Dartmouth on Jan. 7, and that is the expected date of Cusworth’s return.

“It’s tough, but we’ve played without him,” captain Matt Stehle said. “Albany’s a really good team, and we beat them without him. We’re just focused on Colgate.”

The strong performance of the bench players has helped Harvard weather the injuries to its starters, as senior forward Zach Martin filled in for Goffredo on Saturday and contributed six points and six boards, while sophomore forward Brad Unger scored 11 points as part of a three-man rotation at the center spot.

“We have a lot more experience, so that definitely helps,” Martin said. “I’ve played 10 minutes a game the last couple years and [junior guard] Ko [Yada] has experience as well, so having us come in as opposed to myself a couple years ago, is a big difference.”

With Cusworth sidelined, Stehle will once again shoulder most of the burden in the frontcourt. Stehle will be responsible for neutralizing Kyle Chones, the Patriot League’s leading rebounder. Chones enters the game averaging seven points and seven rebounds a contest, but in three games against Ivy schools (Cornell, Dartmouth, and Princeton), he has chipped in an average of 13 points and 11 boards.

“He’s a really big guy with a strong body,” Stehle said. “He’s not really what I’ve faced the last couple games, so he’s going to be a tough guy to cover.”

Colgate also boasts a very strong backcourt, which returns all three starters from last year’s 85-82 overtime loss to Harvard.

Alvin Reed leads the Raiders at the point and is 10th in the Patriot League in assists with three per contest. Kyle Roemer is the squad’s sharpshooter, connecting on 38 percent of his tries from three and averaging 13 points per game, ninth best among Patriot players. Jon Simon rounds out the three guard lineup, pouring in eight points a game, much of which derives from his tremendous accuracy from the line (84 percent on the season).

Reed, Roemer, and Simon combined to torch the Crimson for 57 points on 19-of-31 shooting. Simon went 9-for-11 from the line during the contest and hit a three-pointer with seven seconds left to force overtime.

“Roemer was a freshman last year, and he kind of snuck up on us, which is something that hopefully won’t happen this year,” Stehle said.

With a win, the Crimson will tie the most non-conference wins in the Sullivan era with eight. The 1995-96 squad posted an 8-4 non-league mark and played the Ivy schedule at .500 for a 15-11 finish. Harvard needs to win two of its final three non-conference games to post the best non-league winning percentage during the Sullivan’s tenure in Cambridge.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.