PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Missing: one triangle offense. If found, please return to the Harvard women's basketball team as soon as possible.
With its offense off in apparent hibernation, Harvard (6-10, 3-2 Ivy) stumbled on the road to a fourth consecutive Ivy League title last weekend, dropping a pair of conference road games and toppling from the ranks of the unbeaten and from its perch atop the Ivy standings. HARVARD 44 YALE 59 HARVARD 65 BROWN 82
In its first action following a 17-day layoff for final exams, the Crimson fell to Yale (7-11, 2-4), 59-44, on Saturday afternoon and Brown (8-10, 3-3), 82-65, the next day.
The losses mark the most lopsided defeats for Harvard since a season-ending 72-48 defeat at the hands of Dartmouth on Mar. 7, 1995. It is the first time Harvard has lost consecutive Ivy games since March of 1994.
The Crimson has fallen into a third-place tie in the Ivy League with Pennsylvania (7-10, 3-2) behind first-place Princeton (10-7, 5-0) and second-place Dartmouth (11-6, 4-1).
"I always feel exam break takes you out of your timing and your rhythm," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "It also takes some of your conditioning away. We're never sharp coming out of exams."
"These two losses make it harder for us," she continued, "but I honestly feel we're still in the race [for an Ivy League title]. Anybody can beat anyone."
Harvard may have also suffered a bigger loss. Junior forward and leading scorer Laela Sturdy went down with a severely sprained right ankle in the second half against Yale and did not return or play against Brown (see related story page B-3).
Brown 82, Harvard 65
Still reeling from its shocking loss to Yale and minus its leading scorer in Sturdy, Harvard could not hang with Brown for much more than 20 minutes at the Pizzitola Center.
The Crimson's offense looked much better than it had one day earlier, but trouble reared its head in another form--rebounding. Brown outrebounded Harvard 26-11 in the first half as the Bears routinely had three and four shots on each possession.
"Rebounding is inexcusable; nobody should outrebound us," said co-captain Suzie Miller. "I, as a guard, take 100 percent of the blame. Their guards were strong rebounders, and we did not adjust to that."
Brown's guards crashed the boards vigorously and were consistently a step quicker to the ball than their Harvard counterparts, helping the Bears to 15 second-chance points. Despite only shooting 36.4 percent in the first half, Brown held a 34-29 lead at halftime.
"I thought in the first half we were taking, not necessarily bad shots, but quick shots and getting no second chances," Delaney-Smith said. "We tried to make that adjustment in the second half."
Harvard's deficit at intermission could have been worse; Brown led 34-23 with 2:38 remaining in the period. But the Crimson scored the final six points of the half on a trey by Miller, a free throw by freshman point guard Jen Monti and a lay-up by co-captain Sarah Russell to reduce the Bears' advantage to five.
But any momentum Harvard may have carried into halftime disappeared quickly in the opening moments of the second half. Brown opened the period on a 12-2 run to effectively put the game out of reach for the Crimson. Harvard did pull within six at 65-59 on junior guard Courtney Egelhoff's two free throws with 2:23 left to play. But Brown freshman point guard Emily Troupe connected on a three-pointer on the ensuing possession to dash the Crimson's comeback hopes.
Harvard lost despite an excellent performance by senior center Rose Janowski. The Glover, Ver. native made up for Sturdy's absence with a team-high 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting. She also pulled down seven rebounds and recorded a block.
"I don't think I've been playing up to what I should be doing," Janowski said. "With Laela gone it's going to be a little bit harder. I think the starting forwards need to give a little bit of incentive to the people coming off the bench."
Harvard was also plagued by turnovers once again. Shaken by Brown's aggressive full-court press, the Crimson committed 23 turnovers in the game "Their press was a huge factor because it tookaway 15 seconds of our offense," Miller said. "Ittook us so long to get up the court, we didn'tmake them pay for it. It was doing exactly whatthey wanted it to do." Troupe led all scorers with 19 points. Brownall-time leading scorer Vita Redding netted 17,and junior forward Cathy Miller added 12 pointsand seven rebounds. Egelhoff recorded 14 points and seven rebounds,and Monti added 10 points and six boards. Brown won the rebounding battle by a 40-34margin. It was the first time in eight games thatHarvard was outrebounded. Yale 59, Harvard 44 For the first 4:34 of Saturday's game, itlooked like Harvard would cruise to an easyvictory. The Crimson came storming out of thegate, scoring 10 points in that span withoutmissing a shot and using relentless defense tomake the Bulldogs work on every possession, toopen a 10-4 lead at the John J. Lee Amphitheater. Then Things got ugly--on both sides of theball. Neither team scored a point for five minutesuntil Harvard freshman guard Katie Gates converteda free throw with 10:27 remaining in the half.Following a lay-up by Yale freshman forwardCaitlin Bair that brought the Bulldogs to withinfive, the Crimson reeled off the next five pointsand staked itself to a 16-6 lead. Harvard's offense must have thought the gamewas over at that point because it left the gym anddid not return. The Crimson mustered only twopoints--on a lay-up by Sturdy with 1:07 showing onthe clock--over the final 7:39 of the first half,allowing Yale to take a 20-18 lead into halftime. "When things start going poorly, we panic,"Miller said. "The reason we did not win is becausewe did not communicate and we did not run ouroffenses. Had we simply run one of our offensiveplays, we would have won the game." The situation only worsened for Harvard in thesecond half. Yale opened the period with a 15-7run to build a 10-point advantage that it rode tothe finish line behind the inside-outside tandemof seniors Katy Grubbs and Autumn Braddock. TheCrimson would pull no closer than five points, andthe Bulldogs scored their final eight points onfree throws. The game's most disturbing moment came 5:03into the second half. Sturdy was running back ondefense when she tripped over a stumbling Yaleplayer. She remained on the floor in obvious painand was helped off the court without puttingweight on her ankle. Braddock and Grubbs finished with 15 and 16points, respectively, to lead Yale with Sturdyout. Janowski fouled out with over nine minutesremaining in the game, Harvard had no answer forGrubbs in the paint and Braddock hit three crucialthree-pointers during the Bulldogs' run to openthe second half. "Losing Rose and Laela against a post playerlike Grubbs does hurt you," Delaney-Smith said."Different players were instructed not to come offAutumn Braddock in the zone, but they bogged down.If you have a breakdown like that against a teamwhere Autumn Braddock is hot, you're going tolose." Miller was the only Harvard player to score indouble figures, finishing with 13 points on 5-of-7shooting. Russell chipped in five points and addedfour rebounds, while Monti handed out sevenassists. Both teams shot 36 percent from the floor forthe game, but the Crimson managed only 17.6percent shooting from distance. Harvard alsocommitted 25 turnovers to Yale's 12, and theBulldogs scored 22 points off of Crimsonturnovers.
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