Tay, Crimson Light Up Bulldogs

Saturday night, co-captain Emily Tay showed all in attendance at Lavietes Pavilion exactly what they will be missing next season.

Tay razzled and dazzled her way to a career-high 34 points, making her final home game in a Crimson uniform one to remember.

Even more meaningful than Tay’s spectacular performance on senior night, though, was the importance of the result. The Harvard women’s basketball team’s 91-57 demolition of Yale kept alive its hopes for a conference title, setting up a must-win matchup against league-leaders Dartmouth on Tuesday—the final day of the regular season.



The revenge factor made the manner of the victory even sweeter for the Crimson.

A year ago, Harvard traveled to New Haven needing—and expecting—a win in order to clinch an Ivy League championship and the tournament spot that comes with it. Instead, the Bulldogs shocked the Crimson 64-58, putting a serious damper on Harvard’s shared title and forcing them into a three-team playoff for the tournament place (which it would go on to lose).

In 2006, a loss to Yale was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect conference record for the Crimson.

Add the usual Harvard-Yale rivalry, and it’s an understatement to say that there was no love lost on Saturday.

“Yale doesn’t show us a lot of respect,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “There are a lot of subtleties that are pretty disrespectful. And they’re crazy to do that nonsense, because it just makes us play harder and better.”

Harvard made its intentions clear from the get-go. Tay made a reverse layup to open the scoring, and then nailed a jumper the next time down the court. A steal and finish from freshman point guard Brogan Berry was followed by back-to-back jumpers from Tay. Before anyone on the Bulldogs’ sideline could catch a breath, the score was 12-0.

For its part, Yale never looked comfortable dealing with the Crimson’s zone defense. The Bulldogs had 15 turnovers to go along with 24-percent shooting in the first half.

On the other end of the floor, Yale had no answer for Tay. The senior ran the show, dishing crowd-pleasing passes when she wasn’t putting the ball in the basket herself. Tay started the game 7-for-7, finishing the period with 20 points.

“She takes over a game when she needs to,” said Berry, who had a very solid game of her own with 15 points and six assists.

The score at the break: 41-17. Tay had outscored the entire Bulldogs team, and Harvard could enjoy the last 20 minutes knowing that it would have the chance to play for an Ivy League title.

Despite relaxing on the defensive end in the second half, the Crimson offense remained on fire. The team shot 75 percent from the floor after the break.

The dominating performance contained significant contributions from every Harvard player. Sophomore Jackie Alemany finished with eight points, six boards, five assists, and four steals. Sophomore Claire Wheeler added 11 points to the effort.

The lopsided scoreline gave coach Delaney-Smith a chance to honor her seniors in front of the large home crowd. In perhaps the most emotional moment of the season, injured co-captain Niki Finelli—out for the season with an ACL tear—entered the game to a huge round of applause with a little over 30 seconds remaining in the game.

“I think when she came out all of us cried,” Tay said.

“It’s hard to articulate how special that moment was,” Finelli said. “Just to step onto the court one more time and put on my uniform one more time…to be on the floor with my teammates. I’ve missed it terribly over the past week and a half or so, but to get that back is really special.”

Seniors forwards Katie Rollins and Emma Moretzsohn helped Harvard to dominate the paint, with the latter pulling in a game-high six rebounds.

Then there was Tay. The senior finished with 34 points, five boards, and two assists—both on no-look passes. Her final game at Lavietes ended with a long standing ovation when she was removed with over four minutes remaining.

“She’s unbelievable,” Finelli said. “There’s not much that’s better in this world than playing with her, but the next best thing might be watching her.”

The importance of the win and her career performance combined to produce a perfect night for Tay.

“We have a lot of history with Yale, so we used that as motivation,” Tay said. “But at the beginning of the game I told [the team] to just go out and have fun [because] that’s when we start clicking.”

But Harvard will not celebrate the feel-good win for too long, as the attention must now turn to Dartmouth on Tuesday.

“We are really excited to play them, and we’re just happy we have the chance to get a piece of the championship,” Tay said. “We are preparing starting now.”

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