Cagers' Remarkable Season Remembered

An Ivy Tournament Preview: The Year in Review

As the post-season Ivy League Women's Basketball Tournament gets underway this evening (7:30 p.m., Briggs Athletic Center), we take a look back at some of the memorable highlights of the season which brought Harvard a share of its first Ivy basketball title in 84 years (12 years of women's play). Here is the Crimson's 1985-'86 year in review.

August 19-September 1: Several members of the '84-'85 squad travel to Holland to play exhibition games with the top four-ranked club teams in the country, many of whose players competed on the Dutch state's national team. The trip proves extremely valuable for a young Crimson squad looking to gain experience working together as a unit.

The Pre-Season: Missy Park, a 1985 graduate of Yale, joins Kathy Delaney Smith's coaching staff and Beth Wheatly Doran returns for her fifth year as an assistant. Delaney Smith stresses that her team is still young but that it is capable of posting a better than .500 record for the first time this decade.

The fourth-year coach predicts that because of league parity, this year's Ivy champ will have at least three losses. Harvard and Dartmouth will eventually wind up their campaigns tied for first at 9-3.

November 23: On the day of The Game, the Crimson travels to the University of Hartford and knocks off the Lady Hawks, 45-43, in the cagers' season opener. Harvard shows off its depth--which will later play a major factor in the squad's stretch drive--right from day one, as nine different players score.

The victory marks the first Harvard road win in over two years and gives the hoopsters--losers of 10 games decided by 10 points or less last year--confidence that they can win the close ones.

November 30: Sharon Hayes, last year's leading scorer for the Crimson, goes 8-for-11 from the floor as the cagers celebrate Thanksgiving by defeating defending Ivy co-champion Brown, on the road, 71-66. It's the first Ivy road win since Delaney Smith assumed control of the program in 1982.

December 1: Harvard suffers an apparent let-down after the big win at Brown and is crushed by Yale in New Haven, 64-48. Following a month of non-league play, the Crimson will comeback to win its next five Ivy contests in a row. No Harvard women's basketball team had ever before captured more than three league games in a whole season.

December 6 and 7: After shooting 29 percent from the floor in losing a 40-point mid-week contest at national powerhouse Boston College, the Crimson returns home to Briggs to host the fifth annual Harvard Invitational.

All signs point towards the hoopsters' capturing the event for the second consecutive year when they outclass Long Island University, 86-67, in the opening round Friday night, but they run into a tough Lehigh squad the following night and fall in the finals, 77-58.

Hayes, who registers 30 points in the two-game tourney, and freshman Sarah Duncan, who embarks on a string of 30 consecutive free throws over the weekend, are both named to the All-Tournament team.

January 4: Despite being out-rebounded 48-22, Harvard beats the "team to beat," pulling out a three-point win over Dartmouth. Duncan records five blocked-shots and the Crimson, averaging 25 turnovers per game, turns the ball over only 10 times.

January 10 and 11: Beth Chandler, returning from a pre-season knee injury, scores 30 points over the weekend--en route to being named Ivy Player of the Week--as the cagers complete their first-ever weekend sweep over Ivy competition.

By demolishing Penn, 68-52, Friday night, the Crimson snaps a six-game/three-year losing streak against the Quakers and assumes first place in the Ivies. And with its eight-point victory over Princeton Saturday night, the squad has already knocked off both defending Ivy co-champions of '84-'85 with more than half the league schedule remaining.

January 31 and February 1: Just when everyone had put the brooms back in the closet, the hoopsters pull off their second consecutive weekend sweep of Ivy foes. This time, the victims are Yale (avenging the earlier loss) and Brown (again). The Crimson shoots a season-high 63 percent from the floor against the Elis and then comes back to hit at a 64 percent clip in the second-half against the Bruins.

11 different Cantabs score in the Yale affair--in which Harvard snaps a 12-game/nine-year losing streak against the Bulldogs. Sophomore point guard Barbarann Keffer nets 22 points, hands out eight assists, and comes up with four steals as the Crimson shut down Brown the following night, setting up a mid-week showdown at Dartmouth for first place.

February 4: The Big Green embarrases Harvard in the first half in Hanover; the Crimson manages only 28 percent shooting from the floor while being outscored 44-25. Harvard stages a gutsy second half comeback but still loses by 11, spoiling yet another spectacular individual performance by Keffer (whose 28 points figures second-best in the all-time Crimson record book).

Dartmouth, which converts 35-of-39 free throw opportunites to tie an Ivy record, takes sole possession of first place.

February 7 and 8: The cagers regroup to shoot 51 percent from the floor and make 20-of-21 from the foul line in defeating Cornell, 84-72, Saturday night raising their record to 13-6 (7-2 Ivy). The victory also assures Harvard at least one win over every Ivy opponent in the same year for the first time ever.

The very next evening in Ithaca, the cellar-dwelling Big Red somehow find a way to defeat Dartmouth, 58-57, lifting the Crimson back into a first place tie with the Big Green.

February 14: In their worst loss since B.C., the hoopsters are derailed by Princeton, 84-72, in New Jersey while Dartmouth is romping over Penn in Philadelphia. The Crimson makes less than a third of its field goal attempts and records only one assist in the 22-point trouncing.

Despite once again dropping a full game off the league pace with but two Ivy contests remaining, Delaney Smith remarks after the Valentine's Day massacre that she still believes Dartmouth will lose another game.

February 15, 9:05 p.m.: The Crimson keeps its Ivy title hopes alive by crushing Penn, 80-65, completing a two-game season sweep of the Quakers. The hoopsters bear no resemblence to the squad that lost to Princeton the previous night, shooting 50 percent from the field and tallying 22 assists. The only dark spot is that Duncan's consecutive string from the free throw line ends at 30.

February 15, 9:15 p.m.: Delaney Smith admits after the win that, "This was a great season, even if Dartmouth doesn't lose another game."

February 15, 9:30 p.m.: Delaney Smith's post-Princeton prophecy is realized as word comes to the Palestra that Princeton has just upset Dartmouth, 69-67. The Big Green loss yet again lifts the Crimson back into the picture with only Cornell remaining on each squad's Ivy schedule.

February 21: Dartmouth clinches at least a tie for its fifth title in the last seven years by whipping Cornell, 67-50, in Hanover. Harvard is now forced to defeat the Big Red at Briggs the following night or be eliminated from the Ivy race.

February 22: The Harvard women's basketball team gains a share of its first-ever Ivy League championship by blowing out Cornell, 77-57, before a season-high crowd at Briggs. Chandler leads the way with 16 points while Keffer dishes out eight more assists and Duncan blocks six more shots. 84 years of frustration finally come to an end.

February 23: The Crimson wins an early-morning coin toss with Dartmouth and chooses home-court advantage in the first and last (don't ask) Ivy Tournament. For its part, the Big Green receives the number one seed in the tourney and an accompanying first round bye. If all goes as planned, the two will meet in a re-match Sunday afternoon at 2:30 in the tourney's final round.

Let the tournament begin.