Hoyas Too Much For Harvard To Handle

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Harvard men’s basketball team finally ran out of gas.

Two weeks after taking Connecticut to the wire and defeating Boston College, the Crimson (7-3) broke down in the closing minutes of the first half against No. 13 Georgetown (9-1) and was unable to rebound in the second frame, falling, 86-70, Wednesday at the Verizon Center.

“We’ve been playing with a great deal of spirit and fight,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “We’ve been playing pretty well, so [it was] not a very happy moment for our team at the end of the first half through the second half.”

The Crimson’s downfall can at least partly be attributed to co-captain Jeremy Lin’s inability to produce numbers comparable to his previous performances. After scoring 30 and 25 points against the Huskies and Eagles, respectively, Lin was held to just 15 points against an athletic Georgetown team that sent double teams at Lin throughout the game and forced him to cough up a game-high six turnovers.

“We ask a lot of Jeremy,” Amaker said. “I thought he was as good as we could ask him to play against some of the circumstances with a man and a half [defending him] every time he put the ball on the floor.”

For perhaps the first time this season, Lin was outplayed by an opposing guard. 6’1 junior Chris Wright exploded for a career-high 34 points, six rebounds, and six steals for the Hoyas.

“We really take pride in trying to contain scorers,” Wright said. “Some of the bigger schools underestimate [Lin], but he’s very talented, so we just wanted to try to contain and try to force him into tough shots.”

Wright, who was able to attack the basket at will, propelled Georgetown to an 11-point halftime lead that Harvard could not make up.

Despite the 18-point difference on the scoreboard when the final buzzer sounded, the Crimson hung with the Hoyas throughout most of the first half.

A 6-0 Harvard run fueled by full-court layups from Lin and sophomore point guard Oliver McNally knotted the score at 33 with only 3:31 remaining in the first half.

But those three minutes were enough for the Hoyas to put the game out of reach.

Georgetown responded with an 11-0 run to close out the first frame and the Big East squad entered the locker room with a 44-33 lead.

“That was all the difference in the game,” Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. “It was just the effort right there at that end that got us on that run and put us over the hump.”

Things began to fall apart for the Crimson following McNally’s coast-to-coast basket that tied the score. Guard Jason Clark, the Hoyas’ leader in three-pointers made, got the run started with a jumper from beyond the arc.

6’11 center Greg Monroe, a projected lottery pick in this season’s NBA draft, ripped the ball away from freshman Dee Giger on the Crimson’s following possession and followed with a lay-in off an offensive rebound to increase his team’s lead to five.

Monroe recorded one of his five blocks on the next possession when he rejected freshman Kyle Casey’s layup attempt. The Hoyas took the ball the other way and got the ball to Austin Freeman, who knocked down the deep shot from the corner to increase the Big East squad’s lead to eight with just over two minutes remaining.

Lin, who has traditionally been the one to halt the runs of opposing teams, blew past his defender but was whistled for the offensive foul as he exploded to the basket. While the Crimson finally managed to record a defensive stop, McNally had his pocket picked and the Hoyas’ Wright was fouled going to the basket.

Although he converted on only one of his two free throw attempts, Wright got the last laugh, putting in a layup that extended Georgetown’s lead to double digits heading into the break.

“I thought we started very well—we were pretty sharp,” Amaker said. “I just thought that the end of the first half, that was the dagger for us.”

Harvard came out of the break trying to attack the basket, but the Hoyas were too big. Harvard sophomore forward Keith Wright was stuffed on the Crimson’s opening possession and McNally soon followed suit.

A lay-in and two-handed slam from Monroe gave him four of his 16 points and extended the lead to 19. Harvard’s deficit would soon grow to 24 and the Crimson was sent packing back to Cambridge.

“We tried to pick ourselves up at the start of the second half,” Amaker said. “But with an 11-point cushion for their team here at home, that’s a big hill for our team to climb.”

—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.