The Harvard men’s basketball team (11-4, 1-0 Ivy) closed nonconference play with a 66-57 victory over Bryant on Tuesday night. After playing six of its previous seven games on the road, the Crimson will return home to Lavietes Pavilion to take on Dartmouth (7-8, 0-1 Ivy) Saturday afternoon. Below, The Back Page takes a look at the three main things to keep your eye on as Harvard looks to maintain its perfect home record.
Is Zena Ready?
How things turn. After barely leaving the bench in an overtime loss to Boston College, sophomore Zena Edosomwan got the first meaningful start of his career against the Bulldogs. With 13 points and eight rebounds in just 24 minutes, the Los Angeles native delivered. After a rocky start, Edosomwan had four points and four rebounds in the Crimson’s 8-0 run that clinched the victory.
Although he cannot match senior center Kenyatta Smith’s contributions on the defensive end—the sophomore is a better rebounder but a vastly inferior shot blocker—Edosomwan stands a good chance at matching the senior’s contributions due to his offensive prowess. While he is a black hole on this end of the floor (29.0 percent usage rate, 1.7 percent assist rate), he does a good job getting to the line and rarely turns the ball over. His post game has improved dramatically (43.9 percent effective field goal percentage in 2013-2014), and he is by far the team’s best offensive rebounding threat.
Turnovers, Turnovers, Turnovers
After the team’s win in Hanover two weeks ago, all that Harvard coach Tommy Amaker focused on afterwards was turnovers. Specifically, 17 of them—six by starting point guard Siyani Chambers against just four assists. The Crimson had just eight turnovers against Bryant, and Chambers and Okolie—the two most likely culprits—had only three between them. With only one consistent threat to drive the ball on offense in senior wing Wesley Saunders and a lack of shooters around him, Harvard will be scraping for points all year. Understandably, then, Amaker is focused on eliminating silly turnovers; teams rarely get a good chance to score against the Crimson’s defense when it gets set, and offensively, Harvard has enough to fight without getting in its own way as well.
Mitigating Mitola
In its previous victory against Dartmouth, Harvard clamped down on the Big Green offense by limiting focal point Alex Mitola to 2-for-9 shooting overall. Mitola fills a similar offensive role for the Big Green as junior wing Wesley Saunders does for Harvard as the team’s best—and sometimes, only—playmaker on the roster. The guard has the second-highest assist rate and highest true shooting percentage among the Big Green, with a 123.1 offensive rating that is nearly 14 points higher than the rest of the roster. He rarely turns the ball over—just one against Harvard—and is just as three-happy as Stephen Curry, shooting seven-and-a-half a game at a 40.7 percent clip. If Harvard wants to pull off the clean sweep, it should dust off the old game plan; without Mitola scoring, Dartmouth stands little chance.
