W. Basketball Keeps Eye on Ball, Title

Princeton. Penn. Dartmouth. It all comes down to three final adversaries for the Harvard women’s basketball team.

If the Crimson (17-7, 9-2 Ivy) can keep its momentum going through Tuesday, it will realize its dream of an Ivy League championship.

At the beginning of the season, the team had high expectations. “Looking at the Ivy records, we knew we could be at the top,” junior center Reka Cserny recalled.

The team entered the season as a force to be reckoned with—and now, with three games left, it is back on top of its game.

“Disappointment and hard fought battles” have marked the season, according to Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. But in the end it’s the “defense that wins the games.”

“We all feel and truly believe that we are the best team in the Ivy League,” junior point guard Laura Robinson said. After a very successful weekend, she has no reason to think otherwise.

Last Friday, the Crimson trounced Yale by a score of 67-30.

The same evening, Dartmouth suffered an upset loss to the Brown Bears, allowing the Crimson to creep closer to the Big Green at one game behind.

The next day, Harvard defeated the Bears, effectively knocking out its only remaining challenger for Dartmouth’s first place position. With the game tied at 64 and only 3:41 left to play, the Crimson defense stepped it up, outscoring the Bears 13-4 to capture the win­—sweet revenge for a loss to Brown earlier in the year.

For Robinson, the win was the most exciting part of the season. “As a team we came together and played a great game,” she said. “We dealt with 2,000 screaming Brown fans and overcame the noise.”

With three games left in the season, Harvard and Dartmouth (14-9, 10-1 Ivy) are effectively the only contenders left for the Ivy League Championship.

The Crimson faces off against Princeton (13-12, 5-7 Ivy) tonight at Lavietes Pavilion. They take on Penn (15-10, 8-4 Ivy) tomorrow and the Big Green on Tuesday.

“Each team is very different and each game is very big,” Delaney-Smith said.

The Crimson must win each game in order to stay in contention for the championship.

In no way is the team writing off Princeton and Penn based on Harvard’s success against the two squads earlier in the season.

“These next games are really big this weekend,” Robinson affirmed. “I expect we will win both of the games. “We have had a good week of practice and are prepared for both Princeton and Penn.”

“We have to start off strong for all three of these games and we’ll be fine,” junior guard Jessica Holsey said.

The last time the Crimson battled the Quakers, it took a final run to upend the 2004 champs at Penn’s Palestra.

Trailing 48-41 with less than eight minutes left, Harvard stormed back to pick up a 55-51 victory, keeping the Quakers scoreless for the final 4:20 of play.

The Crimson defense dominated again the following day, helping the team sail to a 67-51 victory over Princeton.

If the Crimson can repeat its previous success with Penn and Princeton, and barring a Big Green collapse in the meantime, Tuesday’s night’s showdown with Dartmouth will decide the title.

A victory at home on Tuesday would make the Crimson the Ivy League co-champions with Dartmouth.

A play-in game would be required to decide who represents the league in the NCAA Tournament.

“This is a team that has to make defense a part of the game,” Delaney-Smith said. “When our defense is playing well, it sparks us to pay better offensively.”

The Crimson came up short to Dartmouth in the season opener, but the game was not a total loss.

The game proved Delaney-Smith’s point to be a valid one and the team learned how to tweak its approach to achieve a successful result.

Midway through the second half, the Crimson was down by 19 points.

A powerful rally forced the game into overtime, but the Crimson could not come up with a victory.

“We learned a lot,” Cserny said. “We learned that we needed to focus for the full forty minutes, especially on defense.”

“Since the Dartmouth game we have become a very different team,” Robinson added. “We have more team chemistry and our defense has improved dramatically.”

The defense has proven critical during Harvard’s current five-game winning streak.

Furthermore, it is staying strong throughout the course of each game.

“At this point in the season I can’t see us losing any momentum,” Robinson said. “Right now the thing that is driving this team and keeping our focus is the Ivy title and going to the NCAA Tournament.”

“We want it,” Holsey said. “We want it really bad.”