It's beginning to be like watching reruns of a show you couldn't stand seeing even the first time around. The Crusaders of Holy Cross mercilessly subjected the Crimson hoopsters to a 90-73 beating before a capacity crowd at the IAB last night, making it 11 straight losses for the Harvard squad.
"We're going through a bad time," Coach Frank McLaughlin said after the game. One thing Harvard does not need, then, is to go up against a team sporting the likes of Crusader guard Ronnie Perry.
Perry's 25 points on the night didn't tell half of the story of this game. When Harvard managed to whittle down a 20-point Crusader lead to 10 points in the second half, Perry went to work, slowing down his team and making it play patient basketball.
It was this that Perry felt set the game apart from the one that the Cross lost to St. Peter's after holding a halftime lead. "I tried to control things in the second half and spread out the defense," he said later.
Gone Early
Harvard's last lead in this contest was at 6-4. After Perry hit a bomb from the top of the key with four minutes gone, the Crimson became sloppy.
Within the first five-and-a-half minutes, Harvard was hit with five travelling calls, not all of which it deserved. The squad turned the ball over 31 times in the game and sank only 17 of its 32 free throw attempts, including 3 for-14 in the first half, statistics that pretty much told the futile story.
The Crusaders streaked out to a 12-point lead with ten minutes gone in the first half by running off a 15-4 burst sparked by the shooting of forward Gary Witts and Perry's all-around play.
With the halftime score at 45-35, the Cross ran the lead to 20 points before the Crimson went into a more effective pressing defense. Bob Hooft led the Harvard offense with 14 points in the half, scoring 24 on the night.
With the score 60-40, Hooft put home a rebound off a Don Fleming shot. After a basket by Perry, Hooft rejected a Crusader shot and streaked down the court to bank in a gorgeous alley-oop pass from Glenn Fine off the fast break.
It was Hooft again a few seconds later, scoring on one of his many driving layups along the baseline to momentarily make the game interesting. But when the margin reached 68-56, Perry went to work controlling the tempo of the game.
Harvard's pressing, overplaying defense led to repeated Crusader layups. Perry chose to shoot, drive or pass totally according to what the defense allowed him. "I'm not gunning to be the leading scorer in the game," he said, "I want my scoring to come in the context of us winning the game. Our guys inside were making good baskets tonight. I can't stress how important that is."
McLaughlin would not make excuses for his team. "It was a very boring game," he said. "With 66 foul shots taken, it just turned into a free throw shooting contest. We lose our confidence and we start pressing. You can see that in our foul shooting."
Perry expressed surprise over the ease of the victory. "I saw them play against Boston College earlier and they looked pretty tough. I was a little concerned coming into tonight's game," he said last night. "They're a young team, though, and it hurts when you lose a few. I think if they just get a couple of wins they'll be all right."
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