PREVIEW: Men's Basketball Travels to California For SanFran, Saint Mary's Contests

If its first two road games are any indication, Harvard men’s basketball can expect hard-fought battles as it travels to California to take on a pair of West Coast Conference teams.

The Crimson (2-2) will be in the Bay Area for four days, as the team will take on the University of San Francisco Wednesday night, before traveling 25 miles northwest to Moraga, Calif., for a Saturday evening tilt against Saint Mary’s. While the trip will afford the team unique opportunities, such as the chance to visit Twitter headquarters Tuesday afternoon, the focus will be on registering important road victories.

After two thrilling games against Atlantic-10 opposition to start its road slate, Harvard will look to continue to grow in close games, especially without junior stalwarts Bryce Aiken and Seth Towns. The non-conference slate will allow the team to take on talented teams across the country, testing its mettle without the team’s two best scorers.

After knocking off UMass by three points last Tuesday in Amherst, the Crimson lost in heartbreaking fashion at URI Friday night. In the dying moments of the game, with the Rams trailing by a point, Daron “Fatts” Russell nailed a go-ahead three-pointer in the dying seconds of the game to hand Harvard a two-point loss.

With nearly an entire week off after the Rhode Island game, the Crimson will hope to get back to its winning ways in the Bay Area. Doing so, however, will require Harvard to register its first wins against the Dons (4-0) and Gaels (3-1) - the team has gone 0-4 against its WCC foes, dropping two games to each.

In the wake of the devastating wildfires in California, there was some concern over whether the Crimson would play both games as scheduled, but Wednesday night’s game against San Francisco will proceed as scheduled at War Memorial Gymnasium downtown.

The Dons will enter Wednesday night’s tilt undefeated, registering dominant wins against UC Davis, Maine, Sonoma State, and LIU-Brooklyn. San Francisco is led by head coach Kyle Smith, who will be a familiar face for coach Amaker and Harvard.

Entering his third season at the helm of the Dons’ program, Smith was previously the coach at Columbia for six seasons. Smith helped the Lions to its highest ever RPI’s from 2010-2012, and became the first Columbia basketball coach to record as many as 30 wins in his first two seasons since Lou Rossini in 1952. Thus far in 2018, Smith has helped San Francisco dominate its opposition, as the Dons have won all four of its games by at least 32 points.

If the Crimson hopes to hand San Francisco its first loss of the season, it must do so by neutralizing the Dons’ lethal duo of guards Charles Mineland and Jordan Ratinho, who lead the team in scoring with 15 and 13.5 points per game respectively. Ratinho’s three-point shooting will be a concern for a Harvard team that has struggled to defend explosive shooters this season. The junior from Livermore, Calif., has knocked down an astonishing 15-of-28 three-pointers this season, and will likely be guarded by the Crimson’s Christian Juzang or Rio Haskett.

The Crimson will have two days off after matching up against San Francisco, before heading to Moraga to take on Saint Mary’s. In the wake of losing standouts Jock Landale, Emmett Naar, and Calvin Hermanson, the Gaels are in the process of finding its new identity, while trying to keep a stranglehold on its status as the second best team in the WCC after Gonzaga.

Saint Mary’s boast a solid defense that has held opponents to just 66 points per game, only allowing three-pointers at a 30 percent clip through four games. After registering victories over McNeese State, Utah Valley, and New Mexico State, the Gaels fell by 17 points to Utah State in their first test of the season. Although Saint Mary’s cruised to a 89-71 victory over Harvard last season, the Crimson will feel better about its chances without Landale, Naar, and Hermanson suiting up for the Gaels.

To neutralize Saint Mary’s, the matchup between junior forward Chris Lewis and the Gaels’ Malik Fitts will be a crucial one. The 6’ 8” sophomore from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., is the team’s second leading scorer at 15 per game, but leads Saint Mary’s with over 8 rebounds per contest.

Without Towns and Aiken, Lewis has become Harvard’s leading scorer, totaling just under 16 points per game in only 22 minutes. If the Crimson has hopes of knocking off the Gaels, Lewis must avoid the foul trouble that has forced him to sit on the bench longer than coach Amaker might like. Avoiding careless fouls while defending Fitts and Saint Mary’s center Jordan Hunter will be crucial for the Alpharetta, Ga., native.

Although the competition will be stiff, Harvard will hope to garner at least one win from its California trip, before returning home to host Holy Cross next Wednesday. In a season that has started without two of the Crimson’s star players, the team must continue to grind out close victories, relying on solid fundamentals and good depth from the bench to register key out of conference victories.

Harvard will take on the University of San Francisco on Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern time, and will play Saint Mary’s at 9:00 pm Eastern time on Saturday.

— Staff writer Amir Mamdani can be reached at amir.mamdani@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @AMamdaniTHC.