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Road to the Final Four, Day 2

Published by Brian A. Campos on March 18, 2012 at 10:12PM

Freshman Steve Moundou-Missi tries to dribble past a leaping Jeffery Taylor in the Harvard men's basketball team's 79-70 loss on Thursday to Vanderbilt in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—What a game.

I’m going to be honest, this would be a much more angry post had it not been for the final half of the second period. With Harvard down by 10 at the break, I kept telling my friends and myself that our team could still make a comeback, that it wasn’t over. But once the half resumed and the Crimson made silly mistake after silly mistake, I thought, damn, what a poor showing. After a couple of years of strong performances in the NCAA tournament from the Ancient Eight, this was pretty disappointing. Then Laurent Rivard happened.

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Men's Hockey Players Earn ECAC Awards

Published by Robert S Samuels on March 17, 2012 at 10:27PM
DANNY BOY

Junior Danny Biega was named the ECAC's best defensive defenseman this week.

After a string of underwhelming seasons, the Harvard men’s hockey team righted the ship in 2011-12 and stood poised to claim two of the ECAC’s most prized awards.

Junior defenseman Danny Biega was one of two finalists for ECAC Hockey Player of the Year after tallying 34 points in 32 contests, which put him second in the nation among defenseman with 1.06 points a game.

Behind the bench, Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 turned a squad some pegged to finish last in the 12-team ECAC into a title contender and became a finalist for the Tim Taylor Award, which honors the league’s top coach, in the process.

But at Thursday night’s ECAC awards banquet, neither Biega nor his coach came away with their prestigious accolade. Colgate’s Austin Smith bested the Crimson blueliner while first-year Union coach Rick Bennett topped Donato.

To some, Bennett’s victory did not come as a surprise.

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Lin '10 Scores 13 as Knicks Roll to Second Straight Win

Published by Juliet Spies-Gans on March 17, 2012 at 10:12PM

For the second straight game, the New York Knicks earned a victory, handily defeating the Indiana Pacers, 115-100, on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. But for the second straight game, Jeremy Lin ’10 wasn’t the one spearheading his team’s success.

Lin, statistically speaking, was strictly mediocre. He shot 42.8 percent from the field and totaled 13 points on three-for-seven shooting. The Harvard alum grabbed five boards as well as five assists and turned the ball over three times—a limited number compared to that of some of his recent games.

With the recent resignation of Mike D’Antoni and the readjustment to new interim coach Mike Woodson, some big questions surrounded Knicks basketball. How would Lin fit into the new system? How long until Baron Davis takes over the starting point guard position?

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Scouting the Area: Atlantic City, N.J.

Published by Alexa N. Gellman on March 16, 2012 at 11:06PM

The Harvard men's hockey team is heading to Atlantic City for Friday’s ECAC hockey championship semifinals. The trip to New Jersey comes after an exciting 8-2 win over Yale on Sunday at Bright Hockey Center. After losing the first game of the series to the Bulldogs, the Crimson bounced back with two straight wins to advance to the next round.

For Friday’s match-up, the Crimson will take on its ECAC rival, number two-seeded Cornell. With one regular-season loss to the Big Red and one tie, Harvard is looking for its first win of this season over Cornell.

In addition to experiencing the excitement of the Harvard-Cornell hockey rivalry, Crimson fans can take advantage of Atlantic City’s many offerings. While Atlantic City is certainly known for its casinos, here are some lesser-known Atlantic City draws:

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The Odds Are Against Harvard Men's Basketball

Published by Daniel A. Grafstein on March 15, 2012 at 10:12PM

Depending on whom you ask, the Harvard men's basketball team will enter its second-round matchup against Vanderbilt Thursday as the five- to six-point underdog.

Last week, the Commodores made history by knocking off the tournament’s top-seeded Kentucky to win its first SEC tournament in 61 years. The Crimson will end its own long drought in the Thursday matinee—the last time Harvard made the NCAA tournament, FDR ’03 had just finished his third term as president of the United States of America.

Some independent models give an idea of the Crimson’s chances of winning. Ken Pomeroy gives the squad a 33-percent chance of advancing, and a nine-percent chance of reaching Sweet 16. The ELO rubric, which takes both winning percentage and strength of schedule into account, predicts similar figures. With a few conversions, the model is revealed to pick Harvard’s winning its first game 33 percent of the time and its first two 10 percent of the time.

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