WEB UPDATE: Women of Troy Classic unfriendly to women's hoops

The Harvard women’s basketball team ended the Women of Troy Basketball Classic hosted by the University of Southern California with two losses. The two losses, though, could not have been more different.

Friday night the Crimson (7-6) went down 54-49 to a Siena team that it had beaten by 23 points just three weeks ago. Co-captain Emily Tay, a Los Angeles native, led Harvard with 12 points and was the only Crimson player to reach double-digits.

“We could not have played worse against Siena,” coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

“We were sloppy on both ends of the floor. There was nothing positive about the game.”

Still, Harvard found itself up 49-45 with four and a half minutes to play. Saints’ captain Heather Stec, who finished with a game-high 17 points, made back-to-back baskets to knot the score at 49 with 2:42 remaining.

In the drought, Siena was able to hit five free throws, capitalizing on four missed thee-pointers by the Crimson, to take the win.

Saturday the night Harvard took the floor against tournament host USC. While the Crimson was playing its worst game of the season against Siena, USC was nearly pulling out a win against No. 8 Duke. The Trojans had built a 17-point second half lead Friday night, only to go down in overtime to the Blue Devils.

While Harvard’s upset bid ended in a 95-74 defeat, the team’s performance was much improved from the previous night.

“We responded really well against USC,” Delaney-Smith said. “Player for player, they have more speed, size, and athleticism.”

Tay once again led the Crimson in scoring, and added four assists, moving into third place on Harvard’s all-time assists list. Tay and sophomore Emma Markley each had 16 points.

In the end, the Crimson could not overcome a large difference in shooting percentage. Harvard shot just 37.5 percent from the field while the Trojans hit 54 percent.

“I loved our patience and our balance, but some of out shots just didn’t fall,” Delaney-Smith said.

USC used a 16-2 run in the middle of the first half to take a 19-point lead into the break. The Crimson played the Trojans nearly even in the second half, and will take a lot of encouragement from the way that it competed against one of the top teams in the country.

The loss marks the end of Harvard’s west-coast tour. The Crimson returns to the court on Dec. 31 for its final non-conference game of the season against Northwestern.