Goin' Bohlen: Playin' in a Winter Woeful-land

BOSTON--Northeastern's All-America-caliber guard Tesha Tinsley didn't show up in the first half of the Huskies' game against the Harvard women's basketball team on Saturday.

Well, she was technically on the floor, but she wasn't playing her A-game. She had just two points, one rebound, one assist and one steal in 19 minutes as the Huskies rode a 30-26 edge into halftime.

By the end of the game, however, she had scored 18 points, grabbed four rebounds, dished out three assists and picked the ball off three times to lift Northeastern to a scorching 61-42 win. The Huskies stopped Harvard's (6-4) three-game win streak, and even that stat line didn't tell the whole story.

In the first half, despite the numbers, you could tell that Tinsley was the best player on the floor; she just didn't want to put out the effort. If she comes to play, Northeastern (5-5) wins. If she doesn't, the Huskies don't.

"We knew she was a good player," said Harvard captain Laela Sturdy. "She has the potential to turn it on and off. She definitely came out ready to play in the second half."

In the second half Tinsley seemed to decide that this game was worth her time. She began driving into the Harvard zone, hitting pull-up jumpers or threading wrap-around assists to breaking teammates. The 5'6 senior guard started crashing the boards, undaunted by Harvard's towering frontcourt.

I saw Allison Feaster '98 play just once or twice, but I think her presence in the Crimson lineup must have been much like Tinsley's in the Husky lineup. They are both players who have another level that no one else on the court can even dream of attaining.

Feaster had the ability to make the other players on her team better, not to mention the ability to carry the team.

Tinsley showed those same skills Saturday, often making the pass that made the pass that got the basket. If there were a category for assists-once-removed, Tinsley would dominate it.

When the Crimson came out in the second half and tried to step its game up another notch, Tinsley put the Huskies on her shoulders and ran with them. Unfortunately for the Crimson, it could not call on Feaster, now in a Los Angeles Sparks uniform, to do the same.

But even if Tinsley hadn't played, Harvard would have had a difficult time winning. Turnovers and rebounding probably hurt the Crimson more than Tinsley did.

The Crimson suffered 14 turnovers in the first half to the Huskies' five. The normally sure-handed Katie Gates had four of those.

Harvard's guards tried to loft passes into the paint to 6'5 senior center Melissa Johnson and her sister, 6'4 freshman center Sarah Johnson, but the Huskies' big players were doing a good job of fronting them.

"The hardest part was the entry passes," said sophomore point guard Jennifer Monti. "They were collapsing on the posts."

At the end of the game, Harvard had nearly twice as many turnovers as Northeastern, 23-12. The Huskies also had a 12-6 edge on steals.

But perhaps the most glaring weakness was under the basket.

Despite the Crimsons' obvious height advantage and frontcourt depth with the Johnson sisters and 6'2 freshman Kate Ides, the Huskies dominated the boards, especially on the offensive end. Northeastern outrebounded Harvard, 42-33, and 20-9 on the offensive glass.

"We need to work on rebounding," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "You can't win a ballgame if you let a team get 20 offensive rebounds."

Beth Hanewald, a 6'0 senior forward, sneaked in for nine rebounds, a number of which came from the weak side.

"In our timeouts, we talked about adjusting to the rebounds, but we just didn't ever bring it to the court," Sturdy said.

Melissa Johnson finished the game with 12 rebounds, four on offense. But some of those offensive boards came from her own missed shots from the floor.

"Even when we got the shots we wanted, at that point, nothing fell," Delaney-Smith said. "And we were outrebounded. That's supposed to be our answer. That was the overwhelming, glaring problem."

Indeed if the Crimson wants to do well in the Ivy League this year, which it has the capability of doing, the Harvard frontcourt players need to start using their height to their advantage. They need to be aggressive on the boards at both ends, meeting the ball rather than letting it come to them. When they have the ball on offense, they need to take it back up strong.

The backcourt players cannot pick up their dribble too early or dribble into the corner where they can't see out of a trap.

Looking into the post, where there are tall targets to pass to, is a great idea, but soft lobs that don't quite get there won't do the job. But if the guards continue to lob it in, then the post players have to make up for it by meeting the ball.

These are basketball fundamentals that players like Tinsley have mastered and that the Crimson players have shown in the past. Once the fundamentals consistently fall into place, everything else will follow.