BASKETBALL '08 SUPPLEMENT: Senior Citizens

If the third time’s the charm, the women’s basketball team and its class of four seniors have a magical season ahead.

After bagging back-to-back Ivy League titles in its sophomore and junior campaigns, the team’s Class of 2009 has a lot of experience on which to fall back as it gears up for a three-peat. But the bittersweet ending to last season proves that looking back is both a blessing and a curse.

After a thrilling home win over Cornell, who during the seniors’ time in Cambridge has evolved into a perennial league rival, the Crimson sat in the driver’s seat entering the final weekend of Ivy play in March: win out, and it would retain its sole grip on the Ancient Eight crown. But a loss in a lackluster effort at Yale the following weekend forced a three-game playoff atop the league standings, eventually sending the Big Red to the NCAA tournament and Harvard home.

But as play opens for the two-time defending champs tomorrow, the team—led by its four seniors—has the task of keeping the past where it belongs.

“That was the first and hopefully the last time I’ll ever be in that situation,” admits Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, who logged her 400th career victory last season. “I don’t like to dwell on it. I will spend no time thinking about it at all.”

“You have to take what you can learn from last season to lay the foundation for this season,” senior forward Katie Rollins adds. “You let it motivate you in preparing, and once you’ve done everything you can to get ready, you put it behind you. It’s a new season.”

A new season means a new-look Crimson, with the notable holes left by graduates Lindsay Hallion, Jessica Knox, and Adrian Budischak looming as question marks. What’s staying the same? Success will come and go with the play of Rollins and fellow seniors Emily Tay, Niki Finelli, and Emma Moretzsohn. Rollins and captains Tay and Finelli have started for Delaney-Smith since their sophomore year, and Moretzsohn has often been the first post player off the bench.

While all these minutes made the members of this class the team’s de facto leaders quite some time ago, they now have an official responsibility to bring a small and varied group together. Not only does the team welcome two new freshmen, it also faces the need to bring its group of five sophomores into the fold. With nary a junior to assume leadership next season, Delaney-Smith’s underclassmen will have to grow up—and quickly.

“We’re so small as a team, so we really have to stick together and be united to do well,” Finelli says. “[Tay] and I are just trying to lead by example and make sure that we stay focused. It’s such a different perspective viewing the team as a senior than as a freshman.”

“Their excitement and will to win is really transferring to the younger players,” freshman point guard Brogan Berry says of the four seniors. “I have already learned so much from them.”

Learning fast happens to be something Finelli, Tay, Rollins, and Moretzsohn know a little bit about. Labeled the most talented class she’d ever recruited by Delaney-Smith their freshman fall, the four faced high expectations in 2005. The early going was a bit of a struggle—Finelli and Rollins missed significant time with injuries—but Tay and Rollins made the All-Ivy Rookie Team, and Finelli joined them in the starting lineup in the 2006 opener. Since then, the four have complemented each other: Tay has an uncanny ability to find her roommate Rollins down low, Moretzsohn is an imposing post force when Rollins needs a breather, and all three can find the sharpshooter Finelli on the perimeter when defenses collapse. It’s a lot for opponents to handle.

“We’ve been together for three years and known each other every step of the way,” Finelli says. “Given our record and the way that our team has played, there are expectations and pressure to continue with that success. But what’s special is that we consider this our season. We don’t reflect on what’s happened in the past, we just try to take it forward every time we step on the court to do things that are ours.”

From the start, they’ve won and lost as a group. And from the start, expectations have been high for this class—perhaps never higher than they will be starting tomorrow, when they step on the court to begin their quest for a third straight Ivy title. As the season progresses, they will complete their evolution from talented recruits to well-seasoned starters to leaders of perhaps another title-winning Harvard team.

“They have gotten better, in my opinion, every year,” Delaney-Smith says of her prized once-recruits. “We were deeply disappointed by having control of our own destiny last year and giving it away. What are the ramifications of that disappointment? I would say it will make the seniors better.”

A few weeks ago, the team received its 2008 championship rings and watched its title banner rise to the rafters at Lavietes Pavilion. As the seniors surveyed the banners that commemorate Crimson title squads of old, they couldn’t name the years its predecessors had shared the title. It didn’t matter. For this veteran group, it’s not enough.

“We don’t call ourselves defending champs, and some of us have said we’re not going to wear our rings,” Tay says. “We want to be the sole champions.”

“We beat ourselves up a lot about last year, so we need to take pride and see that back-to-back championships is an accomplishment,” Rollins adds. “But we’re not going to settle for that. We will be the sole champions this year. That’s our goal.”

—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu.