Lowly Bears Are No Obstacle

After last weekend’s heroics against Cornell, beating Brown was not supposed to be a very difficult task for the Harvard women’s basketball team. But Friday night in Providence, a poor first half placed the Crimson in a dogfight.

The team did not panic. The players gathered themselves in the locker room before dominating the Bears (2-25, 1-12 Ivy) in the second half on their way to a 68-47 win that guaranteed Harvard (18-9, 11-2) at least a share of the Ivy League title.

“Once we got the jitters out in the first half, we knew we just had to get it done and we started playing the kind of basketball we have been playing the entire season,” junior Katie Rollins said. “That’s what really got us the win tonight—the fundamentals on both offense and defense.”

Some great shooting also helped. The Crimson shot over 65 percent from the field in the second half, and went 4-for-5 from behind the arc. After struggling offensively in the first frame, Harvard put up 40 second-half points to fuel the big victory over the Bears.

Junior guard Emily Tay led all scorers with 13 points, while Rollins added 12 to the cause. Junior Liz Tindal also made significant contributions off the bench on 4-for-6 shooting in 18 minutes of game time.

Not only was the win vital to the team’s season, but it was also a landmark for coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, who picked up her 400th career victory.

Delaney-Smith, who is in her 26th season in charge of the Crimson, reflected on her time at Harvard after the game.

“I bleed Crimson,” she said. “I love the kind of student athletes I get here.”

Going into the game, however, such records were a complete afterthought. Harvard went into the weekend knowing that with two wins it would retain its Ivy League title and earn a spot in the NCAA tournament.

A large 24-point victory over lowly Brown in Cambridge last month gave the Crimson plenty of confidence going into Friday’s matchup.

But the Bears were looking to spoil the party. Putting pressure on the ball handlers, Brown forced 11 first-half turnovers and prevented Harvard from getting settled.

The opening frame was very much back and forth, but the Crimson was able to take a six-point lead—the largest of the game at that point—into the break thanks to some strong defense towards the end of the half.

Offensively, though, Harvard was still struggling.

“We were having a hard time connecting, which is so unlike us,” Rollins said. “We’ve been playing together for so long and have so much team unity and for that not to be showing on the court was unfortunate. We knew in the second half we had to come out and play an entirely different game.”

After the Bears scored a quick six points to tie the score just over a minute into second-half play, Delaney-Smith took a timeout. From that point, the Crimson simply decided to switch gears. Determined not to let last weekend go to waste, Harvard responded with a 7-0 run, with two Rollins layups separated by a three from junior Niki Finelli.

Later in the half, the Crimson went on an 11-0 run to go up 59-40 with six and half minutes left to put the game out of reach.

“We slowed down and got into our offense in the second half,” said co-captain Lindsay Hallion, who finished the game with seven points, four assists, and two steals. “In the first half they were pressuring us a little bit and we sort of got frantic, but in the second half we executed better and got great shots.”

The result was that Harvard stood just one game away from a spot in the tournament. And although she was happy with the way her team rectified its early mistakes, Delaney-Smith still prefers a slightly easier path to victory.

“I would hope we don’t start that way tomorrow night [against Yale],” she said.

—Staff writer Jay M. Cohen can be reached at jaycohen@fas.harvard.edu.