Basketballers Ready to Take on Weekend Opponents

The Harvard men's basketball team has a major roadblock in its way, and it is named Adonal.

He's Adonal Foyle, Colgate's bluechip, all-everything freshman center. Standing at 6'10", Foyle has already lived up to his enormous expectations.

After only six games, this boy wonder has scored 14.2 points per game, pulled down 13.2 boards per game, and averaged 5.3 blocks.

And yes, he is a freshman.

The Crimson certainly has its work cut out for it in tonight's game. After Tuesday's nail-biting win against Dartmouth, Harvard has to stop this Adoninable Snowman if it wants to extend its one-game winning streak.

True, the Red Raiders are 0-6, undoubtedly worse than Harvard's 3-3. But Colgate has played teams like Maryland, Syracuse, and Mississippi State, while the Crimson has matched up mostly with Colgate's Patriot League foes--Army, Holy Cross, and Lehigh.

Harvard is 0-3 in those games, and has defeated Babson, St. Francis, and Dartmouth.

Responsibility for covering Foyle will probably go to junior Darren Rankin and sophomore Kyle Snowden. Although both have had experience at center and power forward, Rankin and Snowden are three and five inches shorter, respectively, than Foyle.

Colgate's other potent weapon is senior Tucker Neal, a scrappy guard who has averaged 20.7 points and 2.9 assists. With Harvard's strong defensive backcourt in captain Jared Leake, sophomore Dave Demian, and seniors James White and Dan Morris, the defensive key for the Crimson will be to contain Neal and to cut off passes to Foyle.

With Adonal foiling much of Harvard's inside play, the backcourt must pick up the slack. Small forward Mike Gilmore absolutely has to maintain his hot streak from behind the three-point arc, where he has converted six of his last nine attempts.

Also, Leake and Morris must improve their shooting. Against Dartmouth, they were a combined 3-19 from the field, an average of 16 percent.

It will be a difficult game for the Crimson to win. Harvard has shown a proficiency to play up to (and oftentimes down to) the level of its opponent.

Ivy Notes

Sometimes it seems like Penn could just reserve their hotel reservations for the NCAA Tournament before the season starts. Tuesday night, the Quakers shocked 25th-ranked Michigan, 62-60, in Ann Arbor. The game was shown nationally on ESPN, and don't be surprised to see the Quakers in the Top 25 soon if they don't falter.

The Ivy League Players of the Week were Jerome Allen, the Penn senior, who led his team to a 30-point victory over Fairleigh Dickinson, and Cornell's Brian Kopf. The forward tallied 32 points and 14 rebounds in the Big Red's win over Hobart, both totals career highs.

Harvard's Mike Gilmore was put on the Honor Roll due to his 21 points, including 5-7 on three-pointers, in the Crimson's loss to Lehigh last Saturday.