New Era Dawns for M. Hoops

Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan says that the 1999-2000 Harvard men's basketball team will be a work in progress. The question is how long that progress will take.

What's for sure is that nothing will come easy to a team that finished in fourth place in the Ivy League last year (13-13, 7-7) but lost five seniors--more than any other team in the league.

Graduation hit the Crimson hard. Tim Hill, Mike Beam, Paul Fisher, Bill Ewing and Chris Dexter--who were the guts of the winningest four-year stretch in program history (58 wins)--were four of Harvard's top five scorers last year. The five started 80 games between them and leave the Crimson with just three regulars who saw substantial minutes.

Of those three--junior forward Dan Clemente, captain Damian Long and sophomore point guard Drew Gellert--only Clemente averaged double-digit points, and he is the team's leading returning rebounder with just 4.6 per game.

"We're definitely the least-experienced team in the league," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said. "We've got to look at ourselves as trying to find a niche somewhere in the Ivy, but we're a work in progress. How long it will take us to become a legitimate work, I don't know. Long-range, we'll be fine, whether that's now or next year. We're not saying 'Wait until next year,' but we just need to start playing."

In a competitive league, which features at least three realistic title contenders, the Crimson will have to work hard to separate itself from the second tier. But it has a strong legacy of achievement on which it's looking to build.

"For these guys, it's all about maintaining the winning thrust," Sullivan said. "They don't want to see the winning streak drop off, and they'll find a way."

Backcourt

Hill was Harvard's all-time assists leader, averaged 16.1 points per game and played 1,033 of a possible 1,050 minutes en route to a first team All-Ivy slot. More importantly, he was a four-year starter who missed one career start and ran the offense with more poise and precision than anybody else to play his position for Harvard.

The Crimson's first question must be making an offensive transition from a system based on Hill to one that operates through Gellert and highly-regarded freshman Elliott Prasse-Freeman.

"Elliott and Andrew have a speed and quickness that's similar to Tim Hill's," Sullivan said. "What they have to learn is the relentless, resilient approach Tim brought. Our thinking on offense now is that we have to find situations for Dan Clemente to be successful. Where Tim would have found them by instinct, we have to work on creating them."

But Gellert has a separated right shoulder and will not be available until Thanksgiving. Classmate Alex Lowder, a combination guard with good speed who saw limited time last year, is out indefinitely with a sprained ankle, and Pat Harvey, who played in 24 games last year and shot 40 percent from three-point range, will miss the season for academic reasons.

That leaves Prasse-Freeman and Long, who like everybody else to play alongside Hill, has not run the floor much, to captain the offense in the early-going.

"Elliott's a smart kid and a smart basketball player," Long said. "He's got good court sense and lots of experience at the high school level, and he's the primary point guard until Drew is back."

The 6'3 Prasse-Freeman was a high school All-American and has even inherited Hill's No. 15 uniform.

Sullivan started a three-guard set in last Sunday's exhibition game against St. Francis Xavier, and seems likely to continue with that offense in the absence of major frontcourt depth.

When he does, freshman Brady Merchant will probably start at two-guard in-between Prasse-Freeman and Long. Merchant is a solid-shooting wing guard, who, like Prasse-Freeman, also got his predecessor's number--Mike Beam's No. 22.

"Brady Merchant is a fine athlete with good range," Sullivan said. "He's a good shooter with good ball skills and he brings a real complete game."

What the Crimson loses in Beam's pure shooting ability at the two--he was a 43.3 percent three-point shooter and averaged 11.8 ppg--it may gain in mobility with the ball. Beam was often a stand-and-catch shooter who needed a ball screen to generate his shot.

"We'll definitely be doing more driving from the wing, not the top," Long said. "Our wing guards are guys who can penetrate and get the ball inside or go corner-to-corner."

In past years, the Crimson backcourt relied on penetration by Hill, mostly from the top of the arc, to free up big shooters like Beam and Clemente on the wings. A gunner with the ability to drive like Merchant or junior-college transfer Bryan Parker could add a dimension Harvard hasn't seen since the days of Mike Scott '98.

"Bryan gives us a slashing game, and a defensive-rebounding game too," Sullivan said.

But at least initially, much of the success or failure of the offense may depend on Long, who, if he returns to the form of his sophomore year, would be the best pure shooter on the team. Long struggled to find his role in the offense last year, shooting just 34.3 percent from the floor and 31.7 percent from behind the arc.

In 1997-98, Long was 49.3 percent from the field and 46.3 percent from three-point range.

"Last year I was tense and I played tentatively," Long said. "It wasn't a good indicator of how I'm capable of playing. My confidence is way up this year and I feel very comfortable."

"Damian put undue pressure on himself last year," Sullivan said. "He was centered on his ability to shoot and his confidence suffered overall. As captain, he feels that he's the most experienced player on the team and he's ready to assume the mantle of leadership."

Frontcourt

Sapped by the departure of Fisher and Ewing, who combined to average better than 16 points and 11 rebounds per game, the frontcourt will have to rededicate itself to themes Sullivan has always emphasized--man-to-man defense and rebounding.

"We continued to have problems with offensive rebounding (fifth in the Ivy), defensive rebounding (seventh) and field-goal percentage defense (seventh)," Sullivan said. "The question is what can we get out of our five-spot? We need him to be a presence in the lane. That's been our Achilles Heel."

Sullivan will probably start Clemente and junior Tim Coleman, with Coleman drawing the defensive match-up against the opponent's five-man.

"I've known I would have to take this role since the end of last year," Coleman said. "We've been working on different techniques defensively--fronting more, getting help on the back side. I've always been a five-player, so I don't think the transition will be too hard. I'd usually end up guarding the bigger guy last year anyway when Dan and I were in together."

Coleman averaged 2.8 ppg and 2.4 rpg last year, and did make seven starts.

But Clemente, a returning Ivy honorable mention winner, will be the key to the frontcourt, not to mention the team. After rehabilitating from off-season ankle surgery, Clemente said he feels "110 percent" and should be able to defend and rebound better, in addition to maintaining his always-dangerous scoring presence.

Clemente averaged 14.7 ppg and made 58 three-pointers, despite having his playing time curtailed by his degenerative ankle condition.

Clemente's best game came in late December at Northeastern, when he torched the Huskies for 32 points in an overtime win. And in Harvard's 87-79 win over Princeton on Senior Night, Clemente drilled a 28-foot three-pointer near the end of regulation that helped galvanize his team into a stunning upset.

"A lot's going to be different on the offensive end with Tim Hill gone," Clemente said. "The ball's going to be in my hands a lot more. With not having to think about my ankle, I'll be able to penetrate past the big guys and take them to the hole, or step out. I have the option."

Clemente has always proved very difficult to mark man-to-man, simply because size and shooting ability like his don't often come together. But with fewer secondary options on the floor, Clemente may draw low-post double-teams, or may find himself facing more zone coverage.

"Dan's going to be more of a marked man," Sullivan said. "He's going to continue to work hard to get himself open, and he's proven he can do that at the four."

How will Clemente respond to the extra attention he'll receive?

"By telling my teammates to make shots, that's how," Clemente said. "Seriously, guys will say to me, 'We've got to hit our shots and get you open.' But I'm confident they'll be able to do that."

The Crimson will be very thin behind Clemente and Coleman. Their backups are freshmen Onnie Mayshak and Sam Winter, plus Parker in small-ball situations.

"Sam Winter is a skilled big man like Dan or Chris Grancio ['97]," Sullivan said. "He has shooting and passing skills. He can be a skilled four-man, which is a role we've had some luck with in the last few years. He has to develop into a better defender, he has to learn how to guard in the low post."

That learning curve will be a theme--none of the returning frontcourt players defend as well as Fisher or block shots as well as Ewing, so establishing a presence in the lane will be critical.

Forward Chris Lewis, who missed the last eight games of last season for academic reasons, cannot play until mid-February, and Sullivan said he would not use his year of eligibility and would sit the season out.

That leaves Winter, Parker and Mayshak--who is still making the transition to higher-level ball.

"Onnie Mayshak has what we call a big-time body," Sullivan said. "He's wide and thick and he can run. His experience is not as extensive since he played in Canada, so he has the added challenge of trying to understand a new team and a new level of intensity."

Senior Ethan Altaratz will come off the bench, and 6'10 recruit Brian Sigafoos and 6'7 Don VanValkenburgh will play on the junior varsity.

Overall

At least initially, the Crimson's success will turn on integrating its five new faces into an offense that has lost its main cogs in Hill, Beam and Fisher.

That puts the onus on Long and Clemente to adapt their games to the strengths of the freshman class around them.

"There's going to be a learning curve," Sullivan said. "For the first month, for the first two months, it's going to be totally new for a lot of these guys. They need to get experience, more minutes and more opportunities."

The Ivy is somewhat two-tiered, with Penn, Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell all returning multiple marquee players and looking to push for the top of the standings.

"Those are all teams with experience and star players," Sullivan said. "Then you've got Brown, Yale, Columbia and Harvard, and the question is who's going to be the one to make a move?"

That team will avoid a cellar-depth finish and position itself for a potential move to the first division in 2000-01. But for now, Harvard will content itself with developing the youth on its roster and generating the nucleus of a new contender.

"The key is to keep things simple," Sullivan said. "You present the whole, and then the parts. An older team knows the whole, it has the sense of a big picture--what's second nature to a veteran team has to be ingrained in a team like this. The leadership of upperclassmen is key to that."

Clemente and Long will have that leadership tested, and their skill will go a long way toward determining this team's fate.