Harvard Hoops Falters on Offense, Drops First Game at GMU

In his first game of the 2010 season, Keith Wright was one of the few things that wasn’t wrong with the Harvard men’s basketball team’s debut performance.

The junior co-captain had his best collegiate game to date, tying a personal best with 22 points and grabbing a career-high 16 rebounds. But that wasn’t nearly enough for the Crimson, as Wright’s teammates shot a paltry 21 percent from the field in a 66-53 loss at George Mason Saturday afternoon.

“I felt like we got the shots we wanted. We just couldn’t knock them down, we couldn’t finish,” Wright said. “George Mason played a great game. They were the better team.”

Harvard hung with the Patriots through a sloppy first half, but a 14-0 run by Mason early in the second turned a 39-33 lead into a 53-33 advantage, and the Patriots never looked back.

The young Crimson guards seemed frazzled early on, passing up open looks from three and instead trying to drive inside, which led to many of team’s 11 first-half turnovers. But Wright—who scored the team’s first 10 points—kept Harvard in the game, as George Mason had trouble stopping the center in the paint.

After the Crimson cut the Patriot lead to one with 8:12 remaining in the opening period, Mason went on a 6-0 run after back-to-back turnovers by juniors Andrew Van Nest and Oliver McNally to open up a seven-point advantage at 21-14.

Three consecutive Wright points brought the team back within four, but the Patriots pushed the lead back to nine with 5:17 remaining in the first.

Harvard fought back again and went into the half down by only four, 32-28, with Wright scoring 15 of the team’s 28 points in the opening period.

“We didn’t play our best basketball,” sophomore Christian Webster said. “[But going into the half] we were feeling good, only being down four even though they played pretty well in the first half and we played not so well.”

But the Crimson opened the second half with three consecutive turnovers, leading to easy fast-break baskets for Patriots Andre Cornelius and Luke Hancock to push the George Mason lead to eight.

A Webster three later pulled the Crimson within six at 16:13, but that was the closest Harvard would get the rest of the way. Patriot guard Cam Long responded by drilling back-to-back threes to push the lead to 45-33 with 13:40 remaining. After forward Ryan Pearson hit a jumper to extend the lead to 14, freshman Laurent Rivard and McNally committed back-to-back turnovers, allowing for two easy Cornelius layups to make it 51-33.

A three by Crimson sophomore guard Brandyn Curry at 9:18 finally stopped the run, but by then it was way too late.

“I think the turnovers were just first-game miscommunication,” Webster said. “I think most of it was first-game jitters...everyone was trying to do things that we don’t normally do, and I think that’s what caused [the turnovers].”

Webster added that he felt the team tried to force the ball inside to Wright too much in the second half, leading to steals and fast-break points for the Patriots.

The lead never fell below 17 until a Wright layup with 3:27 to go, and a McNally three and Van Nest jumper in the final 80 seconds made a late 18-point deficit seem more respectable.

The lone positive from the contest was the play of Wright—the Virginia native finished with a double-double in his return to his home state. The Crimson had just one double-double all of last season.

“Keith was pretty extraordinary,” Webster said. “He was a beast in the paint. Their big man who was supposed to be really good couldn’t stop Keith. He really showed what he was capable of doing.”

Rivard—expected to be the team’s highest-scoring freshman—struggled mightily in his collegiate debut, going 0-11 from the field, including 0-7 from downtown. Curry (2-10), and Webster (3-12) did not fare much better in the loss.

Hancock scored a team-high 14 points for the Patriots, while Pearson added 13 and Cornelius had 11. McNally and Webster each scored seven for Harvard.

Despite out-rebounding the Patriots, 41-34, the Crimson—which clearly missed injured forward Kyle Casey inside—was outscored, 40-20, in the paint. The team turned the ball over 24 times, leading to 24 George Mason points.

“We’ve just got to play basketball like we’re used to playing,” Wright said. “We’re a better team than we showed yesterday. We just try to move on…we’ll take care of some of that stuff in practice, but I’m still confident in our guys.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.