Men's Basketball Preview: Brown and Yale

Eleven months ago, a dagger of a three-pointer from then-co-captain Laurent Rivard sent Harvard out of Payne Whitney Gymnasium riding high. The trey effectively sealed the Crimson’s win over rival Yale, clinching its Ivy title and punching its ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

This year, trailing Yale by one game in the Ancient Eight standings, the Harvard men’s basketball team will enter New Haven facing a different kind of pressure. Barring an unforeseen Crimson or Bulldog defeat on Friday, the former will have to win in the latter’s home gym on Saturday evening in order to remain in control of its conference title aspirations.

Earmarked by Ivy hoops pundits months ago as Harvard’s most crucial road swing of the season, this weekend’s matchups will send the Crimson (13-5, 3-1 Ivy) first to Rhode Island, where it’ll take on a depleted Brown squad (9-12, 0-4), before the team heads west to New Haven, setting up a slog between the two powerhouse teams of the Ancient Eight.

While all eyes will be on Saturday’s contest against Yale (15-6, 4-0), senior wing Wesley Saunders says the team is careful not to look past the Bears, a program whose 2014-2015 iteration is utterly unlike the one the Crimson faced last year.

“We have to take care of business against Brown, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Saunders explained. “[Harvard coach Tommy Amaker] has been doing a good job keeping us focused, telling us that we can’t overlook anything. There’s all this hype around the Yale game, but we can’t even think about that until we take care of Brown first.”

While Brown lost its go-to All-Ivy player Sean McGonagill ’14 to graduation last spring, Bears coach Mike Martin announced just last week that leading scorer Leland King would be leaving the program effective immediately due to “personal reasons.” While King was top-ten in the conference in field goal percentage, points per game, and rebounds per game this year, the stat that perhaps best tells Brown’s reliance on the forward is his league-leading usage rate of 32.0—a five-point hike above even that of reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Saunders (26.8).

The last time Harvard and Brown met, McGonagill and King combined for 53 points, 10 assists, and five blocks, leaving a massive chasm for the Bears to fill on both the offensive and defensive ends—a responsibility they will likely hand off to big man Cedric Kuakumensah.

Although Kuakumensah now paces the team in scoring with King out of the picture (10.8 ppg), it’s his defensive efforts that top the scouting report. Only the second player in conference history to win consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards, the junior set the Ancient Eight single season blocks record with 93 swats.

Kuakumensah’s presence in the paint—and his ability to affect shots down low—may hamper a Crimson squad that predicates much of its offense on getting into the lane. With two starting wings—Saunders and junior Agunwa Okolie—more inclined to slash into the key than shoot the ball from deep, Harvard may be forced to rely more than usual on its perimeter offense on Friday as a result of Kuakumensah’s efforts.

But other than Kuakumensah, Brown lags on the defensive end. Giving up a league-worst 68.9 points per contest and tallying a conference-worst 4.9 steals per outing, Brown, on paper, simply may not have enough firepower to hold back a versatile Harvard offense.

And then there’s Saturday.

A matchup between the two best ball clubs in the conference, a contest between the two probable candidates for Ivy League Player of the Year, this second night of the back-to-back will, likely, be an exercise in nerve-management for both benches.

After splitting last year’s series with their Cantab counterparts, the Elis have upped their stats across the board. As compared to last season’s conference play, Yale is making opponents shoot worse (38.4 percent vs. 41.4 percent), while managing to shoot at a better clip (42.2 percent vs. 40.2 percent), tallying three fewer turnovers per game along the way. It’s allowing Ivy opponents 2.2 fewer points per matchup (60.8 vs. 63), while scoring five more points per contest itself (69.2 vs. 64.2).

Surprising no one that watched league play last year, Yale’s 2014-2015 success can largely be attributed to the play of forward Justin Sears. The junior—who notched 28 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks just this past weekend against Columbia—was, perhaps, the player that gave the Crimson the most trouble last season. In the teams’ two 2014 matchups, Sears tallied a cool 49 points and 24 rebounds, forcing a coterie of Crimson big men into foul trouble with 17 trips to the charity stripe.

“He’s one of the better players in our league and I think he’s established himself as a marquee player around the country as well,” Amaker said. “He’s orthodox but he’s incredibly effective and efficient.…There’s nothing he can’t do. He’s a very, very tough matchup for anyone in our conference because of his versatility and his athleticism.”

This year, Harvard will likely once again throw a bevy of able bodies at the forward, who has a knack of drawing contact and earning the whistle. Co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi, sophomore Zena Edosomwan, and, if deemed healthy, senior Kenyatta Smith will be the probable Crimson rotation to face Sears, while his quick first step and his ability to put the ball on the floor will force other Crimson defenders to pack the middle.

Of course, a heavy presence inside heightens the importance of perimeter offense—something, too, that Yale has in abundance. Paced by Jack Montague’s league-leading 44.6 percent shooting from deep, the Elis have three rotation players that shoot at least 38 percent from beyond the arc, making opponents pay for collapsing on Sears down low. And while Harvard will rely on a glut of forwards to guard Sears, the task of guarding senior Javier Duren—who averages 14.1 points per game—is expected to fall on the shoulders of Saunders and junior co-captain Siyani Chambers throughout the contest.

Unlike last year, there’s no NCAA Tournament ticket riding on this game alone. But with these two teams neck-and-neck in the standings and the end of Ivy play only weeks away, when Harvard steps onto the court on Saturday evening, it may just feel like there’s a lot at stake.

“It’s going to be a good game—they have a good team this year, we have a good team this year, so it’s just going to be a battle,” Saunders said. “We have to be ready to go in there and fight. It’s just going to be fun. These are the kind of matchups you look forward to during the season.”

—Staff writer Juliet Spies-Gans can be reached at juliet.spies-gans@thecrimson.com.