Here’s the good news: This is no secret in their dressing room. After Saturday night’s game, coach Mark Mazzoleni admitted that his team is “very beatable” when it doesn’t “bring a lunchpail mentality.” He said his team was “out-competed” by both Princeton and Brown.
“Right now, we are an average team,” he said. “We need to take the next step up to be a good team.”
After all the preseason hype about this team, those words are almost unbelievable. But they’re true.
Five games into the season, the ECAC favorite looks mediocre. Could it become a great team? Absolutely. The talent is unquestionably there. So is the leadership.
Who knows? Harvard could’ve already turned the corner with Saturday’s win.
“It’s a long season,” Mazzoleni said. “It’s how you finish.”
Good thing. If it came down to how you started, Harvard’s could-be special season would be a little like, well, Bennifer’s marriage.
Over before it began.
—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.