Lin Explodes in Great Week for Crimson

“I’m not really a three-point shooter, so it doesn’t affect me that much,” junior guard Jeremy Lin said in the preseason when asked if change in distance of the collegiate three-point line would make a difference.

After a torrid week in which he scored 54 points in two Harvard home wins, it appears only half of Lin’s statement still reigns true—the expanded distance has not affected him. In those two wins—69-59 over Holy Cross on Tuesday and 66-54 over Army Saturday—the Palo Alto, Calif. native made it rain from beyond the arc, connecting on seven of his 11 three-point attempts over that span.

In Lin’s defense, he did do much more than just pop threes. He scored a career-high 30 points in the home opener against the Crusaders and followed that up with 24 against the Black Knights. In addition to his threes, he was 8-of-10 from the foul line in the first and for an encore made all nine from the charity stripe on Saturday.

His presence was solid on the defensive end as well, as he did his best Butch Cassidy impersonation, stealing four balls against Holy Cross and five more against Army, matching his career high. He blocked two shots on Saturday and missed a double-double in the Tuesday game by just one rebound.

“What more can you say about Jeremy Lin?” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said following the game against the Crusaders. “We think he’s one of the best players in our league—if not the best player.”

Lin not only propelled his team past an opponent that had beaten Harvard in each of the last two seasons, he seemed immune to the physicality of Holy Cross’s play. Twice in the game, the referee made him go to the bench to get blood cleaned up from his forehead.

“The refs just told me to leave the game, I don’t know exactly what happened,” Lin said.

The flesh wound could not stop him and neither could the Crusader defense, especially in the second half—Lin scored 19 of his points after the break. He posted the first five points for the Crimson in that frame, nailing a three and putting back a layup to break a halftime deadlock—and this was just his warm-up show. He beat the Holy Cross defense for a layup, then broke a 37-37 tie with a three. With his team up 53-52 with under five minutes left, he popped another three, then stole the ball on the ensuing possession, forcing his opponents to foul him. He made both free throws and two more the next Harvard trip up the floor to put the proverbial nail in the coffin.

“It was an all-around team game,” Lin said of that performance. “I was just trying to attack the zone, basically just take what they gave me.’

He took what was given in a big way on Saturday as well. Against a tough Army team that forced him into seven turnovers and saw him pick up four fouls, Lin still racked up points when needed. He got the old fashioned three-point play early in the first half and, after being audibly frustrated by missing consecutive threes on one possession, came back a few minutes later to nail a deep trifecta as the shot clock ran down. He beat the shot clock again later in the half with a long two.

The second half saw more of the same. After the Black Knights took a 32-30 lead early in the half, he went right back at them, hitting a three early in the shot clock to put his team back on top. Several possessions later, he stole a pass and coasted to a layup, scoring several more times as his team pulled away, while stepping up pressure on the defensive end.

“It’s a bad game if he has more than seven turnovers,” Amaker said afterwards. “But Jeremy, as always, has been an incredible player for our program and our team. His ability to make plays for himself and for his teammates is unmatched so far.”

Lin’s stellar efforts didn’t escape the Ivy League, which named him Player of the Week. His stats are quite hard to ignore, as on the season so far he ranks third in the league with 20 points per game, second in assists with 3.5 a game, and leads the Ivies with four steals a game. Oh, and for three-point shooting percentage? He’s the best in the league, at 58.8 percent.

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