In honor of the holiday season, the Harvard women's basketball team decided to start its gift-giving early. Unfortunately, the Crimson's generosity almost cost it a victory.
Harvard (7-1) committed a season-high 31 turnovers against the University of New Hampshire (2-4) on Saturday afternoon, but recovered to pull away down the stretch for a 71-55 victory. The Crimson nearly squandered a fabulous effort by senior guard Alison Seanor, who tied her career-high with 11 points and added five rebounds and one steal.
"I didn't like this; it was bad," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "Everyone got very tentative and afraid. This [effort] is not good enough."
Harvard watched as 12 consecutive turnovers at the start of the second half helped UNH erase a 21-point Crimson lead and tie the game at 48-48 midway through the second period. That was when Harvard co-captain Allison Feaster decided the Wildcats did not deserve an early Christmas present.
As she has done for the last three years, Feaster led the Crimson to victory, finishing with 34 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and four steals. She scored 14 of Harvard's final 23 points and assisted on another bucket to end the Wildcats' hopes of an upset.
"They played tough pressure defense, but we did adjust when we needed to," Feaster said.
With 8:46 left in the game, UNH tied the score on a free throw by freshman Kelly Donohue. Half a minute later, Feaster broke the tie by knocking down one of her four three-pointers on the night.
After a couple of buckets by Seanor and junior forward Rose Janowski and some free throws by the Wildcats, the Crimson put the ball in Feaster's hands and let her go to work. Harvard called isolation plays for Feaster on its next two possessions, and the All-American forward did her thing.
Feaster scored seven straight points for the Crimson. First she connected on a 15-foot jump shot. Then she drained another trey. She followed that up with a steal at the defensive end of the floor which she took coast to coast for a layup and a 64-53 Harvard lead. UNH: Kim Kassik 3-13 5-6 11; Steph Schulbert 3-7 0-0 6; Kelly Karl 1-6 0-0 3; Allison Godfrey 4-9 3-5 11; Orsi Farkas 4-4 2-4 10; Sarah Bushey 0-0 0-0 0; Kelly Donohue 2-6 1-1 5; Adriane Domanski 4-7 0-0 9; Jan Beal 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 21-52 11-16 55. HARVARD: Suzie Miller 1-4 0-0 2; Allison Feaster 13-18 4-4 34; Alison Seanor 5-8 0-0 11; Megan Basil 1-6 0-0 3; Rose Janowski 5-6 4-7 14; Courtney Egelhoff 0-0 0-0 0; Laela Sturdy 1-4 0-0 2; Lisa Kowal 1-3 0-0 2; Sarah Brandt 1-2 0-0 3; Sarah Russell 0-1 0-0 0. TOTALS: 28-52 8-11 71. 3-POINT GOALS: UNH--Karl, Domanski; Har--Feaster 4, Seanor, Basil, Brandt. Two possessions later, Feaster found Janowski under the hoop and gave her a gorgeous pass for an easy deuce. Feaster closed out her scoring for the evening with two free throws and a layup. "I don't think the game was on my shoulders," Feaster said. "It's like a chain reaction--once a couple of shots fall, good things just happen." Harvard would not have had such a difficult time closing out the contest had it not squandered its advantage. The Crimson built a 32-11 lead in the first half behind Seanor's strong play but then helped the Wildcats get back into the game. Harvard committed 21 turnovers over a span of 18 minutes including the end of the first half and the start of the second. The Wildcats outscored the Crimson 37-16 during this stretch which culminated in UNH tying the game. "I thought the breakdown was in the first ten minutes of the second half," Delaney-Smith said. "I don't like how we responded to that pressure. That's going to be how every Ivy League is going to play us, so we have to do a much better job." Despite its careless mistakes, Harvard showed great poise in never panicking or losing its composure, even while it lost control of the game. More importantly, the Crimson did not allow the Wildcats to take the lead at any point. "I didn't think we were ever going to lose, and I hope no one else did either," said Megan Basil, Harvard co-captain Still, Harvard continued to live up to the precedent it has set thus far this season of playing down to the level of its opponents and making poor decisions with the ball. All but one of the Crimson players who saw action in Saturday's game committed at least one turnover. Even the normally sure-handed Feaster finished the game with six giveaways. Fortunately, Harvard started the contest in much better fashion with Seanor leading the way. Seanor scored nine of the Crimson's first 17 points and recorded a steal that led to a Feaster layup. She was also impressive on the offensive glass, converting two layups after hauling down a couple of boards. "[Seanor's] rebounding was amazing," Basil said. "When their pressure was on the wings, she was cutting so well to get open. She played a great game on both ends of the floor." Harvard's domination on the glass greatly helped the team's effort. The Crimson outrebounded the Wildcats by an eye-catching margin of 44 to 15. Harvard also continued its torrid shooting. The Crimson converted 54 percent of its field goal attempts, including 7 of 15 shots from downtown. Unfortunately, Harvard only took 20 shots in its turnover-riddled second half.
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