Crimson Brushes Self Off, Wins Big

It took three weeks, seven games, and a cross-country flight, but the Harvard women’s basketball team found the win column on Sunday in Berkeley, Calif.

“Finally,” co-captain Christiana Lackner said. “That’s the first thing that comes to mind.”

The Crimson (1-6) dispatched San Jose State 83-62 to claim its first victory of the season. Harvard fell 96-54 to No. 16 California in its first game of the Contra Costa Times Classic on Saturday.

“After yesterday, we came out strong tonight,” said sophomore forward Katie Rollins after the win over San Jose State. “We didn’t make a trip all the way across the country to lose two.”



HARVARD 83, SAN JOSE STATE 62

Harvard’s superior ball movement between the perimeter and the post frustrated the Spartans all night, as Harvard jumped out to an early 8-2 lead on baskets from guards Niki Finelli and Lindsay Hallion and a pair from Lackner in the post.

All five starters reached double figures, with Lackner (12 points, 10 rebounds) and guard Emily Tay (13 points, 10 assists) recording double-doubles.

“We got the ball inside to the posts a lot more tonight,” Lackner said. “We haven’t been able to move defenses. That was a big part of why we won.”

Finelli paced the Crimson with 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting, netting a pair of free throws and a layup on consecutive possessions at 13:55 to give the Crimson a double-digit lead for good. The Spartans never led and trailed by 29 with 3:55 remaining.

Hallion led the Crimson in the first half with 11 points. Eight Crimson players scored, and all 11 saw action.

“We were ready to go for 40 minutes,” Rollins said. “We had a lot of fast breaks, and once we got that fire, it was hard for them to put it out.”

Harvard also controlled the battle in the paint—a crucial statistic after a sub-par effort on the glass buried the Crimson against Cal.

Harvard outrebounded the Spartans 44-35 and scored 40 points in the paint to San Jose State’s 26.

“[Coach] Kathy [Delaney-Smith] told us before the game that if we didn’t rebound tonight, we probably shouldn’t show up for practice this week,” Rollins said. “So we came out more determined to get those boards.”



CAL 96, HARVARD 54

An ugly start turned uglier in the second half, as host Cal sprinted out to an early 8-0 lead on solid offensive rebounding and added a 20-0 spurt in the second half to bury the Crimson on Saturday.

The Golden Bears earned four offensive rebounds on their first possession. Cal dominated the glass all night, out-rebounding the Crimson 40-22 and pulling down 17 offensive boards.

“It gets into your head,” Rollins said. “We knew they weren’t make their first shots—they were making their fourth or fifth shots. We played great defense on those first shots, but we could have gotten more done offensively if we had done better on the glass.”

Harvard pulled within four at 15-11 on a jumper by Tay with 14:26 to go in the first half. Another Tay jumper put the Crimson down just 26-20, but Cal stormed into the break on an 18-9 run sparked by five Harvard turnovers. The Crimson finished the game with 25 turnovers and just 13 assists.

“Turnovers were a problem in the second half,” Hallion said. “They would go on a run and we’d try to stop them, but we couldn’t gain any momentum because we kept turning the ball over.”

The Crimson turned ice cold in the second half, shooting just 9-of-27 in the second frame. Harvard had just three field goals in the half’s opening nine minutes, as Cal built a 44-29 halftime lead into an insurmountable 73-36 margin with 11:01 left. The Golden Bears shot a blistering 70.4 percent from the field in the second half.

Tay led the Crimson in scoring with 12 points, while Finelli added 10 and guard Jessica Knox had nine. Forward Ashley Walker led Cal with 17 points.

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.