Hot Teams Shoot Poorly After Half

BOSTON—The second half was very different from the first in Harvard’s 79-72 loss to Boston University last night—for both teams.

Energized by the hot-shooting of Terrier guard Carlos Strong in the first half—5-of-7 from three-point range en route to 19 points—BU opened up a seven-point lead, 44-37, heading into the intermission.

As a team, the Terriers were 8-of-14 from long range in the half, and shot a staggering 58.1% (18-of-31) from the field.

Fortunately, Harvard didn’t shoot much worse (12-of-25, 48%) and was able to hang with BU for most of the half.

The Crimson, a 68.8% free throw shooting team on the year, also sunk all 10 of its attempts in the first half, while the Terriers didn’t even get to the line.

The second half, however, might as well have been a completely different ball game.

Both teams came out cold, each shooting significantly worse. The Crimson finished 12-of-30 (40%), while BU was just 11-of-32 (34.4%).

The Harvard defense put the lockdown on Strong, who scored just three points after the break. Instead, sophomores Corey Lowe and Scott Brittain picked up the slack to combine for 27 second-half points.

Brittain was a machine on the offensive glass, grabbing three key rebounds which resulted in six points worth of easy put-backs down the stretch to keep the game out of reach for the Crimson.

“I thought Brittain played very well,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “He pursued the basketball, he was relentless on the glass—we weren’t.”

Lowe nailed four of his six three pointers in the second half, including one from way beyond the arc with 13:10 to play. The ball sailed through the net as Lowe fell to the ground, but no whistle was blown.

Lowe finished with a game-high 23 and grabbed 10 boards, while Brittain added 17.

The Crimson shared the ball better in the second half, tallying nine of its 12 assists. But the free-throw story got worse, as Harvard shot 8-of-12 in the second half—including two key misses with 3:10 to play by sophomore Doug Miller that would have put the Crimson within four.

Harvard kept it close until the end, thanks to BU’s poor shooting, but was never able to make a big push to grab the lead.

“[They] really hurt us in the first half, and it really put us in a hole,” Amaker said. “We dug and scrapped and clawed to try to make it interesting and competitive in the second 20 minutes, and I thought we did that. But we didn’t have enough to get over the hump.”

EN GUARD!

Harvard junior guards Drew Housman and Andrew Pusar were the offensive sparks for the Crimson last night.

Pusar contributed another impressive scoring effort, finishing with 18, in the wake of his 12-point performance against Michigan last weekend.

Housman, the team’s leading scorer, notched 21, including some key three pointers to keep the game close.

“We were probably relying a little too much on those two to do as much as they have to do offensively and then to have to guard,” Amaker said. “But their offensive production was one of the main reasons we stayed in it.”

EVAN NOT ALMIGHTY

Just a day after being named Ivy League Player of the Week, junior big man Evan Harris struggled to find his groove.

Harris finished with just four points and six rebounds in 23 minutes, before fouling out with 10:35 to play. Just 31 seconds after picking up his fourth on the offensive end, Harris put a hard foul on the Terriers’ John Holland on a monster dunk attempt.

Despite the crowd getting riled up, it worked out for the Crimson. Holland missed both free throws, but Harris was sent to the bench for the rest of the game.

“It didn’t help, but we got quality minutes from other players,” Amaker said of losing Harris early. “I wouldn’t say that was the reason we didn’t pull it out—there were other areas of breakdowns.”

—Staff writer Kevin C. Reyes can be reached at kreyes@fas.harvard.edu.