After scoring only 20 points in the first half and twice going five minutes without a field goal, Harvard needed an offensive spark.

Enter junior captain Jason Norman.

With the Crimson trailing 22-20 just over a minute into the second half, Norman sliced through the lane and finished with a difficult layup. Two possessions later, he drove into the paint again, laying the ball in with his left hand and drawing the foul.

Six minutes later, with Harvard down 31-29, Norman once more took his man off the dribble and finished with another layup.

“[Norman] really brought us back in the second half,” sophomore forward Matt Stehle said. “He’s the reason we won this game... He lit a fire under us.”

An offensive explosion ensued as Harvard completed a 23-3 run to take a 49-34 lead with just over five minutes remaining. But the catalyst was the aggressive offensive play of Norman—a facet of his game which was highly anticipated coming into this season, but had been notably absent during the team’s first 13 games.

“[Attacking the basket] is his game,” Sullivan said. “It’s so integral to our team. It’s a big relief when he can get to the rim. Our team feels better, and it’s a big release for him.”

Norman only scored 10 points on the afternoon, but all 10 came on finishes in the paint.

Almost Free

With 8:19 remaining in the game, Dartmouth’s Steve Callahan fouled sophomore point guard Michael Beal, putting Harvard into the bonus for the remainder of the game. The Crimson made its way to the line 15 more times down the stretch, converting 13 of those opportunities.

For the game, Harvard had 25 attempts from the charity stripe to the Big Green’s six—only the third game of the season in which the Crimson had more attempts from the line than its opponent.

“We did a better job defending with our feet,” Stehle said. “We concentrated this week on having good closeouts to shooters and I think it was easier [to guard without fouling] because we knew their [offense].”

Harvard committed only 13 fouls on the game—its second-lowest total of the season.

Seven of the 13 fouls came in the last six minutes of the contest, after the Crimson had already pushed its lead to double-digits.

Leading the effort to avoid committing fouls were Stehle and Beal. The two—who each came in averaging an astounding 3.9 fouls a game—combined for only one foul.

“A big thing for us: at the end of the game, two of the starters that usually have not been on the floor at the end—Matt Stehle and Mike Beal—were both in there,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “Up at Dartmouth, [Stehle] lasted 17 minutes, but here he’s in at the end of the game, making his free throws.”

Getting Defensive

After giving up more than 80 points in six of its first 11 games this season, the Harvard defense has clamped down in the last three contests, allowing an average of 52.7 points per game and keeping its opponents under 40 percent shooting from the field.

“If we can keep opponents under 40 [percent], we’ll be able to hang in every game,” Sullivan said. “They were shooting under 40 in the first half and we were not playing well offensively. But we kept them under 40 for the game, found some offense ourselves and were O.K. to finish out the game.”

Holding Dartmouth to only 49 points would point to a strong defensive performance in itself. But 15 of those points were scored in the final 4:20 of the game—after Harvard had already seized control of the contest. In fact, the Crimson held the Big Green to just three field goals during a 12:28 span of the second half.

“Our mantra getting ready for this game was being tougher and guarding tougher,” Sullivan said.

The Crimson defense received a face-lift Saturday against Dartmouth. Sullivan implemented a full-court, man-to-man defense that he had planned to use in last week’s matchup with the Big Green, but he didn’t have the opportunity to deploy it extensively. On Saturday, Sullivan put the new defense into practice immediately after Dartmouth’s first basket.

“The full-court man defense isn’t designed to get steals; it’s just designed to take seven or eight seconds off the clock,” Stehle said. “It was more focused on letting them get it in and putting pressure so they can’t just run up, making it easier for us on defense.”

Rogus Toes the Line

The Crimson offense prospered on Saturday despite a lack of production from junior guard Kevin Rogus, Harvard’s leading scorer.

Rogus shot 1-for-10 with five points on the game while playing with a broken toe.

“[The broken toe] didn’t affect my shooting at all,” Rogus said. “When you play enough games, you realize you’re going to have games when you just can’t make a shot.”

Despite the injury, Rogus still managed to lead the team in minutes with 35 and pull down six rebounds, half of them on the offensive end.

“He had a very tough first half,” Sullivan said. “We just had to talk to him about fighting through it and he hung in there nicely.”

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.