W. Hoops Rams URI

Sarah Johnson's debutante party took place last night, much to the chagrin of the Rhode Island Rams.

The 6'4 freshman center helped the Harvard women's basketball team overcome a wretched first half and then storm to an 83-59 win at Lavietes Pavilion.

Johnson went 7-of-9 from the floor and 4-of-4 from the line for a total of 18 points off the bench, double her previous high, and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds in just 19 minutes.

"I think she will be a dominant, dominant center," Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. "I think the more experience she gets, the better she'll get."

In the first half, the Crimson struggled against a small and scrappy Ram team, suffering 13 turnovers while forcing 15.

Despite Harvard's height, and URI's lack thereof--the tallest Ram player is a mere 6'1 while the Crimson sports eight players 6'1 or taller--the Rams battled to a 12-12 rebounding deadlock at the break.

It looked like a rough night from the get-go as both Harvard sophomore point guard Jenn Monti and sophomore forward Katie Gates threw lazy passes that were picked off in the first minute.

However, the Rams were unable to convert the turnovers, and after Gates hit a lay-up for two of her 10 points and senior guard Courtney Egelhoff hit a spot-up three from the left corner, the Crimson had a 5-0 lead.

But then the Rams started to run. URI guard Donna Strike hit a running jumper to put the Rams on the board. Two baskets and a free throw later, URI had a 7-5 lead.

It was back and forth for the rest of the half, as both teams played ugly basketball, committing turnover after turnover. The Rams scored 14 points off turnovers in the first half.

The Crimson put together a brief run with 6:58 left in the half. Up 19-17, Johnson put a rebound back for a bucket to spark a 9-0 spurt. In that streak, however, both Gates and Monti had the ball stolen under their watch, indicative of the half Harvard was having.

Harvard shot 52 percent from the floor during the first stanza, keeping it in the game with URI, who also shot 52 percent.

The Rams whittled the lead down to two with 55 seconds left in the first half on a three-pointer from junior guard Shannon Boor.

After the teams traded free throws to make it 33-31, the clock wound down to 1.6 seconds, stopping on a URI traveling violation. Monti in-bounded the ball to freshman guard Bree Kelley, who spotted up, shot from the hip and swished home a three-pointer as time expired.

At halftime, Delaney-Smith said she made sure her players understood how poorly they had been playing.

"I was probably pretty angry at halftime," Delaney-Smith said. "They're not relaxed. They look to the coaches to relax them instead of each other. I told them we were outrebounded at halftime because I thought being even with them was being outrebounded by a very short team."

"She yelled at us for not being ready to play," Egelhoff said.

The players clearly got the message.

The Crimson turned the defensive pressure up a notch to open the second half.

In the first minute, the Crimson held the Rams to a shot clock violation and increased its lead to 10 in the second minute when captain Laela Sturdy put back a rebound for two of her six points.

At 11:40, the Harvard lead was still at 10, 50-40. But then the Crimson came on strong as junior center Melissa Johnson, Sarah's sister, took a pass from sophomore guard Laura Barnard and put it in for two to start a 9-0 run.

Egelhoff pushed the lead to 73-46 with 5:24 left on a three-pointer from the left corner. She finished with 11 points on the night, shooting 3-of-5 from three-point land.

The Rams cut the lead to 20 with 2:39 left in the game, but that would be as close as they would get the rest of the way.

Dressing only nine players, including two walk-ons, URI broke down in the second half as the Crimson kept the tempo above the Rams' preferred level.

"I think the only way they could even stay with us was to take chances and to pressure us," Delaney-Smith said. "We tried to make too long passes. We have to work on our passing. I don't think it's because we can't pass, I think it's because we can't relax."

Monti finished the game with 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting and dished out nine assists in 28 minutes, although all of her scoring came in the second half.

"I think one thing that happened was that Jenn Monti played two different games," Delaney-Smith said. "She changed her game when she got angry. I think this team relies on the point guard to set the tone and I think Jenn's tone in the first half was not good."

Guard Colleen Mullen was the only Ram in double figures, putting the ball up often, but hitting little. She finished with 12 points on 5-of-17 shooting.

Despite its 19 turnovers on the game, the Crimson shot well, hitting 52.7 percent from the field and going 6-of-12 from the three-point line. Harvard also hit 19 of its 21 free throws.

Notes

K.C. Jones, who won two NBA championships as the coach of the Boston Celtics during the Larry Bird years, was on the sidelines for the Rams.

The Hall-of-Famer is an assistant coach to Belinda "Boe" Pearman, his assistant when he coached the New England Blizzard of the now-defunct American Basketball League.

"She asked me if I would come down and work with her to help bring some attention to the women's game and to help with the players," Jones said.

"I'm doing it a couple of days a week. I go down there and try to make all the games I can," he added. "The fans like it and I bring some visibility to the women's program which makes me feel pretty good."

Arriving in the minute before the game started, Jones spent much of the game seated and sedate, not getting too involved in the coaching.

"Both [teams] played very well, in terms of being competitive," Jones said. "Harvard had a lot of size down low and they used it. Our team was just too short to deal with it. With us, we hustled."

Jones won eight NBA titles as a player for the Celtics with Bill Russell and Bob Cousy before retiring in 1967...

Zinobia Machanguana, a 5'9 junior guard on Rhode Island, has an interesting connection to the Harvard team.

Her sister Clarisse is a teammate of former Harvard star Allison Feaster '98 on the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

Clarisse, a 6'5 forward, was a star player in college before heading to the WNBA.

"She was a stud at Old Dominion," Delaney-Smith said.

Clarisse averaged 2.8 points per game while Feaster averaged 5.1 this past season.

Zinobia, who is from Mozambique, had eight points for the Rams in last night's game.