Women's Basketball Drops Season Opener at Minnesota

The Harvard women’s basketball team (0-1) was on the road this weekend for its first game of the season, taking on the Minnesota Golden Gophers (1-0).

The Crimson suffered its first loss of the season, 87-103, extending its losing streak from last season to four straight games. It showed early and often that Harvard will have to go through growing pains before it hopes to challenge quality opponents.

“Not good enough to win, unfortunately,” head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “[I’m] disappointed because I think it was a winnable game.”

The Crimson started three underclassmen with three more coming off the bench. However, one should be hesitant to say that the loss was due to young players, considering many of the sophomores on this year’s squad either started or played quality minutes in last year’s season.

“You expect when you play and start the players that play here who are so young, you expect some transition and some of those mistakes. In that sense, it’s a great start,” Delaney-Smith said. “[However], if we didn’t have the ability or the depth that would be one thing, but that’s not the case.”

The two biggest problems for Harvard were turnovers and fouls. Harvard turned the ball over 22 times compared to Minnesota’s nine turnovers, as well as sending the Golden Gophers to the line for 27 free throw attempts while the Crimson only had three during the contest. Getting away from fundamental basketball contributed to Harvard not taking care of the ball, and underperforming on the defensive end of the court.

“I think we made little mistakes like not checking our passes, and little to no ball fakes,” captain Destiny Nunley said. “Defensively sending a team to the line a lot during the course of a game really messes up the flow. It stops the game, it stops the run, and once we figure that out we can control the pace of the game.”

Minnesota’s Carlie Wagner controlled the pace as she lead her team to victory with 27 points. Wagner also collected two offensive rebounds, and grabbed two steals starting at the point guard position.

“She was a very good player. A couple times she hit a three with a hand in her face,” Nunley said about the Minnesota native.

Despite the Crimson’s shortcomings, there were signs that this squad has the potential to be dangerous later in the season. Harvard hit sixteen three-pointers in Saturday’s match-up, the fourth time in program history and first time since 1998.

The strong shooting from beyond the arc came as no surprise to the players or the coaching staff.

“It’s by design. We think we have incredible inside game. Destiny is a very athletic player who can be effective inside, Jeannie is freshman who proved tonight how good she can be inside,” Delaney-Smith said. “We think we can be very powerful and athletic inside, and we want to put a bunch of three-point shooters around them.”

Sophomore guard Madeline Raster lead the team in three-pointers, making six three-pointers during the contest. The South Bend native would be crucial in keeping Harvard in the game, playing with poise and confidence.

“She just kept on shooting. She hit two really early and after that she struggled a little bit behind the 3-point line,” Nunley said. “Her maturity definitely showed in this game because last year she would have stopped shooting. I think her confidence was vibrant in this game.”

Another young player that unsurprisingly played with maturity was freshman forward Jeannie Boehm. The McDonald’s All-American showed that she is ready for the collegiate basketball stage.

Boehm scored 15 points, blocked three shots, and grabbed four boards for the Crimson despite the experienced front court of Minnesota.

“I thought it was a breakout game for her,” Delaney Smith said. “I think it’s going to go a long way for her taking a giant step forward.”

Despite late runs by Harvard in the fourth quarter it was unable to close the huge gap that Wagner and the rest of the Golden Gophers created going into the last minutes of the game. Saturday’s contest proved to be a little much for the still maturing team, but showed glimpses of what the Crimson is capable of this season.

“This was a winnable game. We made some errors, especially at the start of the second half,” Delaney Smith said. “There was some decision making that was bad, and we went down from five to six to down by fifteen, in a matter of seconds. We have to fix that decision making. I think there’s a lot to learn, and I’m optimistic that we can fix it.”

Harvard will have a chance to prove if it found the solution this coming Tuesday as the team faces off against the Maine Black Bears at home, a team they have lost to their past two contests.

—Staff writer Stuart Johnson can be reached at stuartjohnson@college.harvard.edu.