Captain Tarik Campbell leads the Ancient Eight with 6.9 assists per game and ranks sixth with 2.3 steals per game, just behind junior Jared Leake, who is tied with Rankin at 2.7 thefts per outing.
Freshman Kyle Snowden stands tied with Rankin for third in rebounding, and Gilmore ranks seventh in free throw shooting with a .792 percentage.
And One More Stat: Speaking of free throw shooting, the team's improvement in that category must be a huge relief for Sullivan and his staff.
Harvard's 14-for-19 performance from the line against Dartmouth finally pushed the team's percentage over .600 (at .602, there's still not a lot of room to spare). And it was Snowden's two free throws with three seconds left that gave the Crimson a 67-66 victory.
If Harvard had shot even decently against Colgate on November 29--that is, if it had missed any fewer than the 17 free throws that it did--it would have beaten the heavily-favored Red Raiders, too.
Vermont Up Next: Harvard faces Vermont in its next match on Sunday at 2:00 at Briggs Cage. The Catamounts will be led by sophomore guard Eddie Benton, a 5'11" dynamo averaging well over 20 points per game.
"[Benton]'s going to get his shots," said junior Jared Leake. "I mean, they're going to set screens for him, and he's pretty much got the green light. But we've got to stop their other players, too.
"We're not going in there with the attitude of 'Stop Eddie Benton, win the game,'" Leake said. "We just want to concentrate on executing our stuff and playing hard."
Around the Ivies: League favorite Penn again deserves top billing, as it knocked off cross-town rival St. Joseph's, 79-77, for the first time since 1979.
Jerome Allen, last year's League MVP, notched 21 points and 11 assists to gain Player of the Week honors. Against St. Joseph's, he was big in the big moments, scoring 11 of Penn's final 12 points, including an NBA-length three-pointer as the shot clock expired.
Harvard gets its first look at the Quakers on January 7, when the Crimson makes its annual swing through Philadelphia and Princeton.
Princeton, for its part, also looks tough this season. While not expected to give Penn a real challenge for the League title, the Tigers have run up a 4-3 record, losing only to Vanderbilt, Tulane and LaSalle, all of which will contend for NCAA berths.
One team definitely not contending for a berth will be Yale. The Elis lost two tough games over the weekend in New York City at the Lapchick Memorial Tournament, hosted by St. John's University. Yale now stands at, ahem, 2-5. Head-to-head
A comparison of last year's varsity basketball team with this year's:
1992-1993 1993-1994 69.5 points per game 71.3 79.8 opponents' points per game 67.5 .421 FG pct. .438 .472 opponents' FG pct. .442 -0.7 rebound margin +9.6 7.8 steals 12.3