M. Basketball Steals its Way to Two Ivy League Wins

It was a weekend of revenge for the Harvard men's basketball team.

After suffering losses to both Brown and Yale earlier in the season, the Crimson handed decisive defeats to both teams last weekend.

Coming off of a pair of losses to Ivy powers Penn and Princeton the weekend before, the Crimson (10-13, 5-5 Ivy) crushed the Bulldogs (7-16, 5-5), 70-51, Saturday night and beat the Bears (8-15, 4-6), 70-63.

Harvard 70 Yale 51

The Crimson defense stepped up on Saturday and shut down a Yale offense that put up 69 points against Harvard earlier in the season.

"The biggest thing we did all night was shutting down Onaje Woodbine," Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said.

With a combination of tough man-to-man defense from sophomore guard Andrew Gellert and a stifling half-court zone the Crimson limited Woodbine to seven points on Saturday.

Woodbine is Yale's leading scorer, averaging 14.1 points per game. He dropped 28 points on Harvard during the first contest between the two teams this season.

Offensively, Harvard dominated both the inside and the outside. Senior guard Damian Long and senior forward Dan Clemente made 4-of-6 and 3-of-7 seven three-pointers, respectively.

"We've shot the three very well the past couple of games," Sullivan said. "Dan and Damien shot very well tonight."

Long was especially impressive, draining NBA-range shots with a defender in his face. Long and Clemente finished with 18 and 19 points on the night.

In the paint, freshman forward Sam Winter was a force. He scored 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting and posted up Yale defenders who enjoyed a four- and five-inch height advantage over him.

"Sam responded to the challenge tonight," Sullivan said. "He did a very good job in tough circumstances."

Perhaps the most impressive attribute of Harvard's offense that evening was freshman point-guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman's unselfishness on offense.

Prasse-Freeman had 15 assists, tying a Harvard single-game record, on the evening to go along with six points and seven rebounds.

"This was the second good game in a row for Elliott," Sullivan said. "It's very important for him, as a freshman, to be consistent in his assist to turnover ratio. This is very encouraging."

Yale got out to an early lead and lead 17-13 with 9:17 to go in the first half. The Crimson then started to vary its defense, playing much more zone than it had since the start of the game.

"Yale was in a great rhythm offensively against our man-to-man defense." Sullivan said. "I thought that we were using up too much energy so we switched to zone defense."

Yale couldn't find an answer to Harvard's 1-2-2 zone the rest of the night.

In the last 9:17 of the first half, Yale scored a total of seven points to Harvard's 14. Junior guard/forward Bryan Parker hit a three with two seconds to go in the half to give the Crimson the lead for good.

Whatever halftime adjustments the Bulldog coaching staff made to attack Harvard's zone, they couldn't have been very inspired. Harvard put up a 28-7 run over the first 11:42 of the half.

Yale tried to mount a comeback near the end of the game, scoring 19 points over the last 9:07 but the Crimson lead proved too much for the Elis, and the outcome was never in doubt over that span.

Harvard 70, Brown 63

Brown came to town looking for another easy win against the Crimson, having defeated Harvard 78-68 in January.

In that game, freshman forward Earl Hunt scored 39 points and was absolutely unstoppable. On Friday night, the Harvard defense turned Hunt into a harmless spectator.

The Crimson set the tone of the game early, with steals by Gellert and Prasse-Freeman leading to easy points. While center Tim Coleman played poorly, missing some easy layups, Gellert began turning in an all-star performance. His tenacious defense limited Hunt to two points on 1-of-3 shooting in the first half.

With Harvard's constant shifting from a man-to-man to zone defense confused the Bears, Gellert took advantage of sloppy ball-handling to rack up six steals in the first half alone. During Harvard's 12-3 run to end the first half Gellert added in some good passing to finish the half with five assists and only one turnover. He also had six points on 2-of-2 shooting to complete an almost perfect half.

As usual, the Harvard defense helped the Harvard offense. The Crimson's 38-24 halftime lead was due in most part to Brown's 11 turnovers, which led to 17 Harvard points. Turnovers led to aggressive up-court passing that in turn led to wide-open three-point baskets, and Harvard converted 8-of-15 threes, including Clemente's 2-of-2 performance, while Brown's long-range attack was non-existent.

"We were fearless about approaching the three-point line," Sullivan said. "And we've continued to shoot the ball better at home."

Harvard continued to pour it on early in the second half. The stifling defense made Brown's guards hold on to the ball for long periods of time, and the Bears often got poor shots off with under seven seconds left on the shot clock. The shooting of Clemente and Long then helped open Harvard's largest lead of the night at 21 points.

Brown, however, refused to back down and slowly began getting back into the game. The Crimson defense continued to deny the Bears any inside game, but its offense went cold.

Brown center Alaivaa Nuualiitia decided to take over the game. His defense and rebounding kept Harvard stuck at 51 points for almost five minutes, while his inside presence let the Brown offense get to the free-throw line and the three-point line. Guard Jesse Wood hit 4-of-9 from downtown for 21 total points, while backup Patrick Nee went 3-of-6 from behind the arc. Brown pulled to 62-58 with three minutes remaining before Harvard hit a few key free throws to finish them off.

While Clemente had 22 points and Long chipped in 16, the story of the game was the Harvard defense. Brown was held to only 39.3 percent shooting from the floor and turned the ball over 19 times. Hunt only took nine shots all game and finished with six points.

"Gellert on Hunt was big," Sullivan said. "Gellert gave the team excellent energy. He specifically tried to understand Hunt from the last game, and we treated him like a special player this time."

Notes

Prasse-Freeman's 15 assists against Yale tied the Harvard record for most assists in a game. He ties the record set by Glenn Fine, who had 15 against Detroit December 26, 1977...

With 11 total steals on the weekend, Gellert moves his season total to 65, one shy of the Harvard season record of 66, set by Keith Webster and Mike Gielen back in the late 1980's...

Tim Coleman was on the sideline in a snappy suit and tie against Yale. He wasn't injured, however. Coleman thought Saturday's afternoon shoot-around began at 2:15. But it began at 2 instead, so Sullivan benched him. Sullivan claimed that it was standard procedure for truants and that Coleman took it like a man. Luckily for the Crimson, his absence wasn't a factor.