Harvard Dominates Big Green in Ivy Opener

On Saturday, Ivy League play began at Lavietes Pavilion with one team rolling and the other reeling. On one side, Harvard had just finished its non-conference schedule with an all-time best 11 wins. On the other, Dartmouth was playing without a head coach as the Big Green’s Terry Dunn resigned on the eve of the Ivy opener.

Momentum did not change for either side. Harvard (12-3, 1-0 Ivy) built a lead in the first half and cruised to a 76-47 win behind a career-high 22 points from sophomore forward Keith Wright.

“We played hard,” Wright said, “especially on the defensive end. Everything starts with defense.”

Dartmouth’s 46 points represented the lowest offensive output against the Crimson this season. Harvard limited the Big Green (3-11, 0-1 Ivy) to 34.5 percent shooting from the field and 25.0 percent shooting from three, while yielding only ten free-throws.

“A tremendous defensive effort, I thought,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said. “To be able to hold them to [47 points] and then the shooting percentage…I was very pleased with that.”

In one defensive stretch midway through the second half, co-captain Jeremy Lin stole the ball four times in five possessions. The senior finished with six steals in the game.

On the offensive end, Lin struggled to find his shot, but Wright picked up the scoring burden. The sophomore dominated the low post, scoring from both blocks with either hand. Wright even drifted outside the paint and showed off his jump shot, knocking down two from midrange in the first half.

“I worked on the midrange jumper a lot this summer,” Wright said. “It’s all paying off.”

The big man finished with his career-best 22 points on 11-of-16 shooting, pacing the Harvard offense on a night when it scored 50 points in the paint.

“We have a lot of weapons offensively that allow us to be a dangerous team and give us great balance,” Amaker said.

The Crimson’s depth paid big dividends as Harvard got a boost from its bench throughout the night.

With the Crimson leading by eight late in the opening half, freshman forward Kyle Casey came into the game and made two high-energy plays. On the first, he chased down Dartmouth guard Robby Pride on a fast break and swatted his lay up off the backboard. Moments later, sophomore guard Oliver McNally launched an alley-oop from outside the three-point line to a soaring Casey, who flushed home the deuce.

After three-straight games of setting a career-high in scoring, Casey finished with six points to go along with four blocks.

In the second half, freshman guard Dee Giger provided the Crimson with a similar lift. First, the freshman knocked down a pull-up jumper from the left corner. Then, on the next possession, Giger drove baseline and flushed home a one-handed jam for two of his eight points on the night.

Another weapon, freshman guard Christian Webster contributed 12 points on five-of-six shooting.

“We have a saying—we stole the saying from the Celtics and we use it a lot with our kids. It states, ‘Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready,’” Amaker said. “Our bench knows that we’re going to use them, so they’re ready to go when we go to them.”

The win—Harvard’s first conference victory—also marks the start of the final phase to the Crimson’s season. Without a conference tournament, every remaining game carries postseason implications.

“Any game in our league is a tough game,” Amaker said. “Our next game, we play [Dartmouth] again at their place. We anticipate they’ll be ready, give their best shot at us, and hopefully we’ll be up to the challenge.”