M. Hoops Suffers Another Heartbreaking Ivy Loss

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—The opponents were different. The gyms were different. But the results were eerily similar.

For the third time in Ivy League play this year, the Crimson was on the road, within a basket of tying or taking the lead, and in possession of the ball. For the third time, the team came painfully close to succeeding but came up just short. The season appears to be skipping every few tracks.

Rewind.

Hanover, N.H. Jan. 8. Harvard trails 49-46. Senior guard Kevin Rogus has a three-point shot go in-and-out as the Crimson suffers its first loss of the Ivy season.

New York, N.Y. Jan. 30. Harvard trails 56-55. The Crimson misses on two attempts from the field and commits a foul. Columbia misses the second of two free throws and the Crimson regains possession, only to watch a last-second lay-up by junior forward Matt Stehle fall off the rim.

Fast forward to Saturday night. The scene is New Haven, and the score is 54-53. Rogus corrals a rebound and Harvard calls timeout with 30.8 seconds remaining. Harvard again gets two chances to jump ahead, but a layup by senior point guard David Giovacchini refuses to go down, and Rogus gets “slaughtered” on his follow-up attempt. The Crimson leaves John J. Lee Amphitheater knowing that it let another one get away. The margin of defeat has gotten smaller, but the feelings afterwards are the same.

The trend is disappointing, to say the least, given the current state of the league. Harvard is just one game behind second-place Cornell, whom they beat in Ithaca during intersession.

Had they gotten just a couple of bounces or a couple of calls, the Crimson might be looking down at every team besides Penn, who sits atop the Ivies at 7-0.

Instead, the Crimson will return home for its next four games looking to secure its first .500 record in league play since the 2001-2002 season.

The team has played well at home in the league this season, staying close to Penn for much of the game before falling, and defeating Dartmouth and Princeton in games also decided in during the final minute.

RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL

The “line of scrimmage” that Harvard coach Frank Sullivan stresses before every game was in constant flux on Saturday, as both teams went on big runs throughout.

Yale guard Edwin Draughan got the crowd to its feet right away, taking a pass from forward Sam Kaplan in for a dunk just five seconds into the game. It was the first of several early buckets for the Bulldogs as they got out to a 12-0 lead in just over four minutes.

After senior captain Jason Norman completed a three-point play to give Harvard its first points, Yale captain Alex Gamboa one-upped him with a four-point play that gave the Bulldogs their biggest lead of the game.

The Crimson refused to be run out of the building. Junior forward Matt Stehle scored three straight baskets to spark a 13-2 run that brought the deficit down to two.

After Yale went back up by six, senior forward Graham Beatty had a personal 5-0 spurt that brought his team to within one, the closest it would get during the opening frame.

The Bulldogs followed Beatty’s baskets with an 8-1 run that spanned halftime and put them back up eight. Not to be outdone, Harvard responded with a 14-2 outburst. Beatty scored to give his team its biggest lead of the game, 41-37.

It would be over six and a half minutes until the Harvard scored again. Meanwhile, Yale put up 13 points as they looked to bury the Crimson.

Just when the game began to get out of reach, the Crimson got out of its funk. A 13-2 run gave the Crimson a one point lead, but it was not enough to prevent another painful defeat at the hands of a familiar foe. A final 2-0 run from the stripe by Bulldog center Dominick Martin, a 58 percent foul-shooter coming in, capped the scoring.

DE-FLATO-ING

Yale got a huge boost in the backcourt from an unlikely source Saturday night.

Freshman Eric Flato, playing alongside two seniors—leading scorer Edwin Draughan and captain Alex Gamboa—recorded 13 points, the fourth time this year he scored in double-digits.

His seven second-half points were crucial for the Bulldogs, who got only two total points after the intermission from their senior guards.

The second half also saw the emergence of Martin, who scored 10 of his 12 points and grabbed six of his nine rebounds after the break.

POINTS IN THE PAINT

Harvard lost at Yale for the sixth straight time...A win would have given the Crimson its first three-game win streak since the 2002-2003 season...Stehle grabbed 27 boards this weekend, while junior center Brian Cusworth grabbed 21. The duo continues to lead the Ivies in rebounding among eligible players...Giovacchini tied for a team-high four assists while Cusworth led with three blocks to remain among the league leaders in each category, respectively.

—Staff writer Gregory B. Michnikov can be reached at michnik@fas.harvard.edu.