Women's Basketball Punches Ticket to Ivy Tournament

Harvard women’s basketball (20-5, 8-4 Ivy) is headed to the inaugural Ivy League Tournament.

This weekend, the Crimson punched a ticket by splitting contests against rivals Yale (14-11, 5-7 Ivy) and Brown (14-11, 5-7 Ivy). After a disheartening 57-52 loss in New Haven, Conn., Harvard bounced back with a triumph over the Bears.

The Friday-Saturday doubleheader comes near the end of a season of peaks and valleys. Between mid-November and late January, the Crimson ripped off 16 straight wins. But in recent weeks, Harvard has hit rough patches—most recently in the defeat against the middling Bulldogs.

“We do have players that can score,” coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “We are executing our offense better. We just need them to step back up and score like they were before conference play.”

There’s no telling what the young time might achieve in the coming weeks. But one fact is certain—the Crimson will have the chance to keep on playing.

Both new and veteran players for the Crimson have shown flashes of talent and given glimpses of what the team is capable of. However, while most programs around the league seem to have hit their stride, Harvard still appears to be in the growing phase.

For Harvard, it’s not a question of whether the team has sufficient talent but whether that talent will manifest at opportune times.

“We should be peaking, and we’ve talked about some things and made some adjustments,” Delaney-Smith said. “The process of taking the next step is consistently playing for 40 minutes.”

HARVARD 66, BROWN 63

Heading into Rhode Island after a disappointing defeat to the Bulldogs, Harvard found itself at a loss. After going on a 16-1 run to open the season, the Crimson had gone 3-4, landed at third in Ancient Eight standings, and faced a potential collapse of all the work it put in prior to its in-conference skid.

What was holding Harvard players back? Simply put, themselves.

“We had a meeting last night trying to identify what is the issue,” co-captain Destiny Nunley said. “We just felt a lot of pressure having the 16-0 winning streak. We just wanted to keep winning, which is true, but losing really set us back…. [S]ometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you reach the top of the mountain.”

Still, the Crimson faced a Brown opponent that sat fourth in the Ivy League and had great incentive to come out of the Pizzitola Sports Center with a win.

Not surprisingly, with the lights shining brightest, freshman forward and coveted recruit Jeannie Boehm was the one to get the Crimson to an early lead.

Boehm had led the team in the first quarter with 10 points to push the Crimson to an early 17-15 advantage. The rookie’s dominance forced the Bears to adjust their strategy to focus more on Boehm.

“I thought she did much better—much, much better—[this week],” Delaney-Smith said. “She’s been working on being aggressive and being in attack mode. She’s very coachable, and that showed up.”

Boehm ended the game with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Not only did the freshman forward have an impressive outing, but also the veteran Nunley tallied a double-double on 10 points and 12 rebounds. The Texas native has posted solid statistics the past couple weeks and been a rock that the Crimson can count on.

“When there is adversity and things not going your way, like missed shots or officiating, there are things you can do on the court to keep you in the game,” Delaney-Smith said. “One of those things is being relentless in your rebounding. That is what Destiny has been doing for sure.”

In the fourth quarter, freshman guard Katie Benzan performed like a veteran, scoring 12 of her 24 points then to seal the deal.

“I don’t really think about how many points I score,” Benzan said. “I’m just worried about what my team needs me to do. That’s what is most important to me, and I know it’s the same for my teammates.”

Saturday afternoon’s victory has the Crimson taking a sigh of relief going into its final regular season weekend against top Ivy League opponents Penn and Princeton.

“It’s going to take our best games,” Nunley said. “We had a really tough road trip, and they were games that we were capable of winning. I think we have a lot to prove, and we just need to get rest this week, get our shots up, and need to be as ready as we can for the games.”

YALE 57, HARVARD 52

Falling to Yale for the first time since 2012, the Crimson was out of sorts and could not get out of its own way at Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

In front of a rival crowd, Harvard could not build a substantial lead until late in the game. Due to turnovers and fouls, though, the Crimson would not keep the lead for long and found itself suffering another loss on the road.

“We played tight and had far too many turnovers,” Delaney-Smith said. “It wasn’t because of anything Yale was doing; it was tightness on our part. Turnovers were our demon last night. Many shooters didn’t want the shot.”

The Crimson, who was behind 28-23 at the end of the first half, clawed its way back into the game following a dominant third quarter when it outscored the Bulldogs 18-12. Big play by Benzan and Destiny brought Harvard to a point where it could win the game.

However, a disappointing performance in the fourth quarter derailed the Crimson. Along with three crucial turnovers by Harvard, 11 personal foul calls gave Yale free points at the charity stripe and put the game out of reach.

Junior forward Jen Berkowitz of the Bulldogs matched her season high with 26 points, along with grabbing 10 boards to lead her team to victory.

“It just didn’t have the same feel that we had pre-conference play,” Nunley said. “We kind of lost the fun of it.”

As Harvard regroups after the weekend’s events, the team will get back to the film room and seek to fix outstanding issues. Certainly, the Crimson hopes to have much more dominant games against the two Ancient Eight opponents sitting between it and an Ivy League championship.

“I think the weekend down at Penn and Princeton wasn’t indicative of us as a team,” Benzan said. “We weren’t playing like ourselves…. I think it will be a totally different atmosphere, and I feel really good about it.”

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