What's the difference between being keyed up to take on Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke on Wednesday and hosting the Ivy League's Brown Bruins on Friday.'
"It's like going from fast forward to play on the cassette recorder." Crimson Captain Ken Plutnicki said after the Harvard men's basketball team's 85-66 thrashing of Brown last night at Briggs Athletic Center.
Make that going from fast forward to rewind.
Despite the victory, the Crimson played a very sloppy (26 turnovers) game. But, surprisingly, the mediocre at best performance proved to be one of the most encouraging aspects of the evening. After putting on a grueling, heart breaking show against the Blue Devils Wednesday, the victory over Brown seemed almost fanciful and effortless.
"Obviously, we didn't play as mentally smart as we did against Duke. Harvard Coach Frank McLaughlin said. "I told the kids that I didn't think that we played well. But that just shows show our expectations have risen dramatically."
The game started slowly for the Crimson which was able to tally only eight points in the first eight minutes of play. But freshman guard Keith Webster's 17 ft right side jumper with 12-10 to go in the first half let loose a 16-3 scoring surge which placed the Crimson in the lead and in absolute control for good.
Despite several missed layups, muddled fast breaks and wayward passes Harvard's advantage never fell below eight.
Harvard's victory pulled the Crimson--with an overall record of 8-9, 4-3 in league competition-into a three way tie for second place in the Ivy League race, one-half game out of first Princeton, which downed Columbia, 34-28 last night, sits alone at the top of the Ivy heap at 4-2. In other action Dartmouth edged Yale, 60-57, and Cornell bowed to Penn, 64-52.
Despite the inconsistencies which surfaced in the cagers' efforts, several elements demonstrated hope as Harvard outclassed the Bruins; who had entered Cambridge with the league's best record.
"Harvard executed its offense extremely well." Brown Assistant Coach Phil Ness said. "They ran their offense smoothly and they got the ball to where they wanted."
On the evening the cagers collected 19 assists--Webster led the team with five the large majority of them coming by way of snazzy inside-the-lane passes.
Harvard also controlled the boards--30 rebounds to Brown's 17 despite that presence of two 6 ft., 10 in Bruin cagers, Jim Turner and Stark Langs.
In addition, the cagers continued to master their strategy of playing a tightly packed zone to neutralize the opponent's inside game.
We made them play outside. That's some thing we've been working on all season Harvard guard Bob Ferry said.
Harvard's 40 foul shots 32 of them in the second half were evidence of the game's sluggishness. Down by 12 at halftime, the Bruins were forced to play an overly aggressive style of ball.
"I said to them at half to just box out and get possession of the ball." McLaughlin said. "If we had the ball, we knew that they were going to foul us."
Yale visits Briggs Cage at 7:30 p.m. tonight
At Briggs Athletic Center
Harvard (85)-Plutnicki 4-1-9; Duncan 5-6-16; Carrabino 4-7-15; Ferry 2-4-8; Smith 1-2-4; Wildes 2-0-4; Boyle 0-0-0; Webster 4-7-15; Trout 3-4-10; Standley 0-2-2; Farley 1-0-2; Daugherty 0-0-0; Danielson 0-0-0; Parkesson 0-0-0. Fouled out: Ferry.
Brown (66)-Brady 4-0-8; Bynum 5-0-10; Waitkus 5-3-13; Bigby 1-0-2; Goodling 1-0-2; Lynch 1-2-4; O'Hara 1-0-2. Daly 0-0-0; Wayda 0-0-0; Murray 4-0-8; Mulder 2-4-8; Turner 2-0-4, Langs 2-0-4; Graves 0-1-1.
Halftime-35-2, H.
Att.-1100.
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