Men's Basketball Losing Streak Grows at Brown

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—A failure to bear down on defense and an inability to protect the ball cost the Harvard men’s basketball team on Friday night, as it fell at Brown, 70-66.

The Bears (8-16, 3-6 Ivy) burst out of the gate in the second half, shooting 58 percent from the floor after halftime to prevent the Crimson (10-13, 3-6) from putting together anything resembling a run until the final five minutes. Harvard, which had won its last two games at Brown’s Pizzatola Sports Center, lost its third straight road game.

With Brown up 32-29 in the first minute of the second half, a three-pointer by team leading scorer Mark McAndrew spearheaded an 11-0 run that put some serious space between the Bears and the Crimson. Harvard got off only one shot during that run, an airballed jumper by captain Jim Goffredo, as it turned it over near halfcourt on three consecutive possessions to open the second frame. Brown capped its run with consecutive three-point plays by forward Matt Mullery and guard Damon Huffman.

“Those first minutes of the second half are always critical to establishing yourself,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “It’s an area that we had been pretty good at all year as a road team. It was very disappointing to see us play as back on our heels as we did. But all credit to Brown, they were energized and had good momentum coming out of the locker room.”

The turnovers forced by the Bears during that spurt were just three of 19 the Crimson committed on the night against a tough defense. Senior guard Marcus Becker and the rest of the Brown defense pressured sophomore guard Drew Housman nearly every time he brought the ball up the court. A week after scoring a career-high 33 points at Princeton, Housman finished the game with 16 points and tied a career-high with seven assists, but also had six turnovers as the offense had trouble getting into its rhythm.

Goffredo led Harvard with 20 points, but shot just 2-of-9 in the second half, with both makes coming from three, after going 4-of-7 overall and 3-of-4 from long range before halftime. Last year at Brown, Goffredo shot 8-of-10 from long range in a 75-58 Crimson win, but the Bears did not give him a chance to repeat that feat this time.

“We talked about it all week, ’cause we know that guy can shoot,” Brown coach Craig Robinson said. “For him to get 3-of-4 on us in the first half, that was a lack of effort. We talked about it at halftime and made the adjustment. We tried to be near him so that all his shots were contested.”

The Bears’ own sharpshooter, McAndrew, finished with a team-high 19 points, despite tough defense from a variety of Harvard guards, including Housman, sophomore Andrew Pusar, and freshmen Jeremy Lin and Darryl Finkton. Fourteen of his points did come in the second half, including a ridiculous up-and-under reverse layup, resulting in a three-point play to put his team up 65-52 with 4:52 to play.

After McAndrew’s highlights, the Crimson finally went on the run that it had been denied up to that point. Harvard scored the next seven points to make it 65-59 after Pusar’s layup with 1:19 left. Despite McAndrew going only 1-of-2 from the free-throw line on Brown’s next two trips up the court, Harvard could not make it a one-possession game. The closest it came was four, after Housman’s layup with seven seconds left made it 70-66. But the Bears just inbounded the ball to Huffman, who held it as the clock wound down to zero, sending the Crimson to its third straight setback.

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.