Interior Struggle

With a little under three minutes to play in last Saturday’s loss at Cornell and Harvard leading 70-67, senior center Brian Cusworth misfired on a shot near the basket. Fighting for the offensive rebound, Cusworth reached over the back of Big Red forward Andrew Naeve in an attempt to rip the ball away, a violation that got Cusworth whistled for his fifth personal foul and prematurely ended his night.

The play was a classic example of a foul borne completely of frustration, and it summed up the way Cusworth’s season has gone since he returned from a fractured left hand for the start of the Ivy slate on January 13. Unable to rediscover the offensive rhythm that he had last season, when he averaged 13.4 points a game on 48% shooting, Cusworth has shot 27-of-66 (41%) in the six league games and has fouled out of both of the team’s losses, to Yale and Cornell.

“I’ve just felt like my offensive rhythm and my confidence in my game has been a little off since I came back,” Cusworth said. “I’ve felt like I haven’t been living up to my teammates’ and my own expectations, and I feel like I haven’t been there for my team as much. I think I really need to step it up in order to help the team get over the hump and get these big [wins].”

The doldrums Cusworth has been battling can be seen in his inability to get consistent touches in the low post, the favorite haunt of pivot men who relish playing with their backs to the basket. When Cusworth gets the ball near the hoop and utilizes his seven-foot frame and array of offensive moves, he can dominate opposing defenders, as he did on a spin move leading to a reverse layup that netted two of his 11 points in the Cornell game.

Those situations have come infrequently in the latest stretch, however, as the center has drifted more towards the perimeter. After the loss to the Bulldogs, in which two of Cusworth’s five field goals were from beyond the three-point arc, Yale coach James Jones said, “I could have [Cusworth] taking jump shots all day—I’d rather have him out there than at the basket. He settled for those shots as opposed to going inside.”

When Cusworth has gotten the ball down low, he has struggled to maintain possession against the help defense that is often thrown his way. Smaller players have been able to knock the ball away to the tune of 17 turnovers in the six games.

“He has to keep the ball higher [in the low post]. He knows that. And he has to do a better job with his footwork. He knows that too,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “[We’re trying to] get him to relax, which is hard to do—he’s been pressing way too much, he’s trying to do way too much stuff.”

BAPTISM BY FIRE

Freshman guard Drew Housman will receive his initiation into the intensity of Princeton-Penn weekend tonight. True to his first-year experience running Harvard’s offense, Housman won’t have much margin for error. His defensive assignment tonight will be to bottle up Tigers senior guard Scott Greenman, who scored a career-high 27 points in a win over Yale last weekend to earn Ivy Player of the Week honors.

Housman received a crash course this week in the vagaries of Princeton’s infamous motion offense, a complicated network of cuts that Greenman has been indoctrinated in for four years.

“[Greenman’s] the one that understands their offense the best, and Drew’s the one that understands their offense the least out of us,” senior forward Mike Beal said. “We’ve been working with him all week in terms of understanding the things that they do. I think that Drew’s going to step up to the plate—I know he will—and be a really good on-ball defender.”

The learning curve for the rookie guard will not level off on Saturday night, as Housman will have to protect the basketball in the face of the defensive pressure applied by Penn junior guard Ibrahim Jaaber. Easily the best defender in the Ivy League and one of the best in the nation, Jaaber averages a remarkable 3.22 steals a game, using his long arms to strip ball handlers and his quickness to shoot the gaps in passing lanes.

FREE RIDE

Perhaps Harvard’s primary strength on offense has been an ability to get to the free-throw line—and more importantly, to consistently convert once there. The Crimson has shot 452 free throws on the season, 133 more than its opposition, and has connected on 75 percent. Both of those marks put Harvard at the top of the Ancient Eight.

Drawing contact on offense looms all the more large for Harvard this weekend, given that Princeton and Penn have the two best scoring defenses in the league. Venerable Princeton and mighty Penn, in contrast, are both flawed from the free-throw line—Princeton has fewer attempts than any other Ivy team and Penn ranks last with a .647 conversion rate, factors that could become magnified if either game is decided in the final minute.

—Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer can be reached at cpeiffer@fas.harvard.edu.