The warm-ups are over and the Crimson can't be pleased.
A game-high 18 points from senior point guard Tim Hill was not enough as the Harvard men's basketball team frittered away a nine-point lead over the final 8:55 and dropped its fourth of five games, 67-63 at Colgate Friday night.
The Red Raiders (4-5) got double figures from four starters and made 14-of-19 free throws in the second half and beat the Crimson (3-4) 29-25 on the glass in Harvard's last game before its Ivy League opener. HARVARD 63 COLGATE 67
"We got our ass kicked," said captain Paul Fisher. "We were trying to play with them and they just gave it to us. They were able to pick up their level of play down the stretch."
In the backcourt, senior shooting guard Mike Beam chipped in 13 points but shot only 4-of-11 from the field, including 2-of-5 from three-point range and fouled out, while Hill added five assists, giving him an Ivy-best 53, but committed three turnovers in the loss.
Colgate spread the ball liberally among its starters but got its best contribution from the frontcourt, with forwards Jordan Harris and Pat Campolieta and center Ben Wandtke combining to score 39 points on 12-of-21 shooting and 14-of-17 from the foul line.
"Colgate had very balanced scoring," Beam said. "They were able to get the ball inside and they shot a lot of free throws. Conversely, the fact that we were forced to foul a lot shows that we played poor defense and had poor concentration."
Campolieta, the two-time Patriot League Rookie of the Week, led the Raider scorers with 15 points and grabbed five rebounds, adding three steals and a block in 39 minutes.
"They did a good job of driving the lane," said captain Paul Fisher. "We were all right with post defense, but they were very good interior passers."
Conversely, the Crimson's paint offense came out strong but faded, as has been characteristic, in the second half. Fisher, who has been able to exploit size mismatches in the low post with effectiveness all season, to the tune of an average of 14 points per game, shot 4-of-4 in the first half and netted eight points.
But as the Red Raider defense wised up to Fisher's post presence, he vanished as an offensive force, taking only one shot in the second half and not scoring.
"We didn't do a very good job of getting the ball inside to our big guys," Beam said. "And Fisher had a height advantage too. If we had done a better job, things might have been different."
Nor was the Crimson able to get quality scoring from Fisher's supporting cast in the frontcourt. Senior forward Bill Ewing saw limited action and scored four points on two interior shots through 12 minutes. Sophomore forward Chris Lewis played his first substantial minutes of the season but finished only 1-of-2 for two points. The Crimson opened up a 33-30 lead at thebreak, shooting 15-of-27 from the field and 3-of-6from three-point range, and widened that margin to51-42 when freshman guard Andrew Gellert hit adriving lay-up for his only points of the eveningwith 8:55 to play. But the Red Raiders strung together a 14-3 runwhich ended with a pair of free throws that gaveColgate the lead for good at 56-54 as time wounddown. "The funny thing is, I don't even remember thelead disappearing," said Beam. "We just didn't getthe defensive stops and [Colgate's] offense wasable to do whatever it wanted." Beam's second trey of the half closed theColgate advantage to 62-61 with just 50 secondsremaining, but the Red Raiders pulled away bymaking their free throws over the last minute topull out the win. "We had a couple of defensive breakdowns,"Fisher said. "Our offense wasn't able to generateany points and they converted on a couple ofthree-point plays. They had more confidence on theoffense." Harvard also got stung by the turnover bugagain, giving the ball away 17 times after doingit 20 times against Boston University. Fisher ledthe sin list with five. "We did a poor job of protecting the ball,"Beam said. "The ball is precious, especially onthe road in a close game and we didn't treat itthat way." Sophomore forward Dan Clemente added eightpoints on 4-of-8 shooting, but eschewed thethree-pointer taking and missing just one, aftergoing 0-of-7 against B.U. Notes Hill, who earlier this season became the firstHarvard basketball player in history to score1,000 points and dish 400 assists, moved into atie for 12th place on the all-time Crimson scoringlist with 1,079, equaling Tony Jenkins '74'stotal. The next marks to fall should be 11th-placeKeith Webster '87's at 1,083 and 10th-place MikeGielen '89's at 1,104. Beam's 2-of-5 from distance left him the IvyLeague leader in three-point percentage. At19-of-39, his 48.7 percent clip leaves him fivepoints better than Yale's Isaiah Cavaco. Ewing, who set the school record for blocks ina game when he swatted six shots against SacredHeart, added another on Friday to boost his seasontotal to 16. He trails only Cornell's Jeff Aubryon the League leader board. When the Crimson opens the Ivy slate onWednesday at Lavietes Pavilion against Dartmouth,it will do so from the same position in which itended last season--fourth place. Based on non-conference play, preseasonfavorite Princeton is in first place at 4-2,trailed by Dartmouth (3-3) and Penn (2-2).Thoughthey've seen limited action, the Quakers haveplayed the most impressive ball of the youngseason, falling 61-56 to then No. 2 Kansas, andupsetting then No. 6 Temple 73-70 in overtime. "It's time to get serious now," Fisher said."The warm-ups are over and there's no more messingaround. This is the real deal."
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