W. Hoops' Turnaround Destroys Yale

When Harvard and Yale meet in football, they call it The Game. When the two schools collided in women’s basketball at Lavietes Pavilion on Saturday night, the game hardly deserved its lowercase “g”.

The Crimson (13-7, 5-2 Ivy) never trailed in its 90-55 trouncing of the Bulldogs (4-17, 1-7), a statement game coming on the heels of a disappointing loss to Brown the night before.

Harvard forced Yale into 31 turnovers, among them a season-high 22 steals. The Crimson scored as many points off of those turnovers—55—as its opponent scored the entire game.

As Harvard alternated between zone and man-to-man looks, the baffled Bulldogs kept coughing up the ball and igniting the Crimson fast break. When they were able to get into a half-court set, they were equally flummoxed by the Crimson zone, shooting 3-of-12 from behind the arc.

In all, Harvard’s defensive effort was a leap forward after a disappointing showing against the Bears.

“It’s nice in the Ivy League,” said junior forward Maureen McCaffery, who scored 14 points. “You have a game, and then there’s a quick turnaround. I think we were really hungry after last night. We wanted to come out and show we were a good defensive team.”

The Crimson’s ability to get out in transition led to quick, easy baskets that sparked the offense early on. Using a 23-2 first-half run, Harvard built a 25-point lead before the contest was 10 minutes old.

“On transition it was awesome,” McCaffrey said. “We were getting steals and running and converting.”

Junior guard Jess Holsey paced the Crimson with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting, including eight in the first 1:52 of the game that spotted Harvard an early 8-2 edge.

“I was just hitting my shots,” Holsey said.

After a Yale basket, the Crimson embarked on the decisive spurt that pushed the advantage to 31-6 and eliminated the drama from the matchup with 11:36 left in the period.

Holsey added six assists and five steals in a dominating and emotive performance that encouraged head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

“We’re trying to get her to play with emotion,” Delaney-Smith said. “She has wonderful athleticism that she doesn’t always use, but she used it tonight. There was a very visible passion tonight, and the team will feed off that.”

In the second half, Delaney-Smith had a chance to exhibit Harvard’s team depth, emptying the bench and watching 10 different players score in the frame.

Senior Reka Cserny’s bid for the school’s second-ever triple-double lost steam in the second half, when she was rested and yielded to the reserves. She finished with 16 points, six rebounds, five assists, and seven steals, one short of the school record.

Maureen McCaffrey added 14 points, and the squad’s sophomores also capitalized on their chance to shine. Sophomore Christiana Lackner chipped in a pair of career highs—seven points and seven rebounds—and sophomore Kyle Dalton added six points.

“I loved how they played,” Delaney-Smith said. “How proud am I of my inside game going against [6’3 Yale center Erica Davis] with some beautiful moves? They played great.”

The Ivy League’s leaders in field-goal percentage, Harvard finished just a shade under 50 percent for the game. Surprisingly, the Bulldogs shot from a high clip from the field as well—47.8 percent—but the wasted possessions on turnovers proved the difference, with the Crimson attempting 13 more shots in each half.

The 35-point margin of victory was the largest in the history of the 57-game series, and Harvard has now defeated Yale in seven of the last eight meetings between the two teams.

At the midpoint of the Ivy schedule, the Crimson will need some help to catch first-place Dartmouth, still undefeated in conference play. Harvard hopes to hold up its end of the bargain on a road trip to Columbia and Cornell next weekend.

—Staff writer Jonathan J. Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.