Cserny Shines On Senior Night for W. Basketball

It was just a symphonic recording—the dark, longing violin strains radiated only from mechanical arena loudspeakers—but for Reka Cserny, that was almost too much.

On Senior Night, with her brother, Andras, and her mother, Eva, watching intently from the Lavietes Pavilion stands, the first order of business for the Crimson captain before Saturday night’s game against Penn was a tearful observation of the national anthem of Hungary.

“I had no idea they were going to play it tonight,” Cserny, a Budapest native, said. “I almost stopped crying [after Senior Night player introductions] and then they started playing it. And that made me cry again.”

On an emotional night—her mother flew in from Hungary on Friday, just in time to see her daughter’s final three basketball games at Harvard—Cserny dropped 34 points and 12 rebounds on the overwhelmed Quakers and delivered her team, untouched, to tomorrow night’s championship showdown with Dartmouth.

When she sank her final free throw with 1:05 remaining in the game, the Harvard bench erupted in a row of delightful peals and waving, white towels.

She had reached 30 points five times in four years—this time, she set a new career high.

“She just played great,” said guard Katie Murphy, the team’s other starting senior, who received an emotional introduction of her own and harassed the Quakers with 12 points and hounding defensive play. “It was so nice to see her go off on a night like that.”

For a while, the possibility of a new personal best appeared in jeopardy. Down by more than 20 points, Penn nonetheless employed a bizarre fouling strategy.

“They were fouling before we could get her the ball,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “We ran a press breaker to get her the ball so that they’d foul her but then they wouldn’t foul her. So I just said, ‘Reka get the ball back and drive. Go to the hole. Take a shot.’”

Cserny did that, much to the nervousness of her coach. All game, Penn collapsed hard on drives to the basket, throwing elbows, forearms, and anything else—to the tune of 26 personal fouls and 33 Harvard trips to the free throw line.

“I didn’t want her in there,” Delaney-Smith said. “I thought they were a very nasty team and I wanted [the Harvard starters] off the court. But then I wanted her to get the record so I took a chance up there.”

The officiating crew, Delaney-Smith said, deserved credit for toning down the physical play.

“I think they sent the message loud and clear to Penn in the first half,” she said.

The Quakers’ strategy did not work. Last year’s Ivy League champion lost by 21 points, and the score was never even close.

“It was good that it didn’t bother us,” Cserny said. “We stayed strong with the ball.”

After the emotional game, Cserny and the Crimson deserved a much-needed rest. They didn’t earn one.

Dartmouth will visit Lavietes Pavilion tomorrow, bringing with it a busload of frenzied fans from Hanover, N.H.

Up for grabs: a share of the Ivy League title for Harvard and an outright championship for the Big Green.

Should Harvard win, the Crimson will play Dartmouth again, probably this Saturday, for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

If Saturday night’s game is any indication, the Big Green would best beware: Cserny’s mother will again be in attendance at Lavietes. In that case, there’s no telling what havoc the Harvard captain could wreak.

“She doesn’t care much about the stats,” Cserny said of Eva, her proud mother. “She just likes watching me play.”

And she’s not the only one.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.