Big Red Contains Crimson

A year ago, my fellow men’s basketball beat writers and I traveled to Ithaca, N.Y., to report on a disappointing loss for the Crimson.

My reward later that night?

A chance to rest my weary head on the thin carpeting of a Cornell University dormitory.

This past weekend we repeated the arduous journey upstate, and though hopes were high, my lodgings remained humble.

Following another woeful game, my spine grew intimate with the uncompromising floor of a studio apartment. That was the least of my worries, as the bitter cold forced me to don a hat and coat while attempting to fall asleep.

Believe it or not, the men’s basketball squad experienced an eerily similar case of déjà vu during its return to the land of gorges and waterfalls.

For the third year in a row, the Big Red blew out Harvard at home. And again, the Crimson was overmatched on the interior and allowed the opposition to score at will.

But somehow, this year’s edition of the annual massacre was even worse than before. Last year’s margin of defeat was a mere 21. This time around? Cornell devoured its Ancient Eight rival, 86-50 (for all the Big Red readers out there, that comes out to a margin of 36).

Let’s make this clear: the home squad was by far the better team Saturday night.

As its coach Steve Donahue says, the now nationally-ranked Big Red has the talent, depth, and experience to challenge any school in the nation.

Seven-footer Jeff Foote anchors the frontcourt and draws attention away from a steady rotation of accurate shooters.

Unselfish ball movement flummoxed Harvard’s defense, which often was slow to rotate and left Cornell with wide-open opportunities.

Still, a team fresh off mentions in Sports Illustrated and the Wall Street Journal should not be losing by 36 points.

The game’s outcome might be best explained as a perfect example of the Crimson’s glaring weaknesses—for one, its penchant for turning the ball over.

Harvard ranks 326th out of 347 Division I schools in taking care of the basketball, and many of this weekend’s gaffes were especially egregious.

An electric atmosphere, as well as the Big Red’s quick hands and commitment to defense, played a role in keeping the Crimson off balance, but many of Harvard’s 25 turnovers were unforced. Short passes suddenly became uncatchable, and dribbles went awry.

Unsurprisingly, three of the four leaders in turnover rate on the season for the Crimson are freshmen: forward Kyle Casey, and guards Christian Webster and Brandyn Curry.

Although Casey has improved steadily throughout the year, the wing ran into problems against the size and strength of the Big Red.

Sometimes content to shoot jump shots, Casey had four points and five turnovers, and has experienced issues with foul trouble all year as well.

Due to an injury to sophomore guard Max Kenyi, Webster’s minutes have risen as the season went on—having started all but four games this year—but his field goal percentage has headed in the opposite direction.

The rookie plays the highest amount of minutes of anyone not named Jeremy Lin, yet he possesses the team’s lowest offensive rating on the team and looked shaky against Cornell.

Classmate Dee Giger got off to a hot start, nailing four-of-six threes in the season opener at Holy Cross, but has shot 27 percent from behind the arc since then.

Highly-touted coming into the season, the freshmen may have hit the metaphorical “wall,” and their decline on the offensive end has only added fuel to the perception that Harvard is a one-man show.

While the team is ranked fifth in the country in two-point field goal percentage and eighth at the free throw line, it suffers from the lack of a second legitimate scorer when Lin is double-teamed, or on the rare occasions when the star guard receives a breather on the sideline or is in foul trouble.

Alone in his ability to consistently drive and get into the paint, only Lin was able to reach double-digits in scoring at Cornell.

Contrast this to the fact that all five of the Big Red’s starters reached the milestone.

It does not help that the Crimson’s lone seven-footer, sophomore Andrew Van Nest, makes his living out on the perimeter, hoisting up threes at an accuracy of 28 percent.

During Saturday’s match-up, the Big Red was content to pass the ball around until Foote was guarded one-on-one by Van Nest.

Only then would the all-Ivy big man go to work—which actually involved very little work on his part. Foote simply backed his man down and proceeded to add another two points to the scoreboard.

As one fellow writer remarked, “Watching Foote on Van Nest was like watching a puppy get executed slowly.”

The injury to senior forward Pat Magnarelli has only made matters worse.

The team’s best defender, Lin cannot be asked to take on big men (though, on occasion he found himself guarding Foote one-on-one Saturday night, to disastrous results).

Out on the perimeter, no defender was quick enough to keep up with the Big Red’s Louis Dale.

Not sophomore Oliver McNally, who is shooting at a lower percentage than he did as a freshman, and not Curry, who may be hampered by a reported knee injury that will require surgery at season’s end.

Add in a long bus ride the night before to the burden carried by Harvard last Saturday, and the blowout starts to make a little bit more sense.

This is not to rain on the revival of Harvard basketball, but simply to remind to keep expectations reasonable.

Head coach Tommy Amaker has done a commendable job in his short tenure at the helm, as his team now has the chance to break the school record for most victories in a season.

Though it looks to be Cornell’s year—and even if the Big Red comes to Lavietes Pavilion Feb. 19 and takes down the Crimson again—it’s truly a season to be savored for fans of Harvard basketball.

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu