Bad Luck Befalls M. Hoops

It was desperate, off-balance and as carefully guarded as any defensive strategy could have prescribed.

And yet somehow, Princeton guard Kyle Wente's last-second heave-launched frantically from behind the three-point arc with the Tigers trailing by one and time set to expire-swished through the net, giving the Tigers an astonishing 69-67 win over the Crimson.

Just seconds before, Harvard captain Dan Clemente-whose 29-point effort the previous night led the Crimson its most lopsided victory over Penn in 44 years-had calmly sunk a ten-foot jumper to put his team ahead. But during the timeout by Princeton that followed, the concern shifted from whether Clemente could make the go-ahead basket to whether he had left too much time on the clock in doing so.

As it turned out, he had. With 7.4 seconds remaining, Tigers point guard Ahmed El-Nokali took the inbounds pass, dribbled towards half-court, and worked the ball to Wente, who was swarmed by two Harvard defenders. Junior guard Andrew Gellert-the league's top defender-played the ball in an attempt at a swipe while sophomore guard Pat Harvey played the body, his arms raised in hopes of disrupting the shot.

The defensive scheme was executed perfectly. But Wente stepped to his side and hurled an awkward left-handed shot that sailed through the hoop and gave Princeton a miraculous, come-from-behind victory.

If only the shot had rattled out. Harvard holds on for the win, completes it first weekend sweep of the Killer P's since 1987 and then-who knows? Maybe Harvard prances all the way to the Ivy League title and it's the Crimson, instead of the Tigers, taking on North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

But that's not how it played out.

The actual story is much more tragic. The loss to Princeton completely reversed the Crimson's luck, as Harvard went on the road the next two weekends and dropped four in a row. After that tailspin, it took wins over Cornell and Columbia in Harvard's final two games of the season just to salvage a .500 league record.

"We have to find some resolve from this heartbreaking loss," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan had said after falling to the Tigers.

But that resolve was never found. Wente had sunk Harvard's momentum right along with that last-second shot. Up until that point, the Crimson had been every bit the contender for its first-ever Ivy title. For the first time in eons, the league race was wide open, and Harvard-along with Yale and Brown-was making a full-fledged charge at dethroning Penn and Princeton.

The Crimson's stunning victory over Dartmouth in the Ivy opener back on had set the tone for its remarkable early-season run. With the Crimson trailing 78-74, Clemente buried a trey to trim the deficit to one point with 6.3 seconds to play.

All Dartmouth had to do was inbound the ball and run out the clock to seal the win. But Harvey stole Flinder Boyd's inbound pass a la Larry Bird (circa 1987) and then drew a foul. Harvey-who led the country in free-throw shooting at different points this season- sank both shots from the line, as Harvard shocked the Big Green 79-78.

It was not the only time that the sharp-shooting Harvey-who returned to the Crimson this season after taking his sophomore year off-would play the role of hero. Over the course of the year, he established himself as a viable alternative to Clemente on offense. In situations where Clemente was likely to be double- or triple-teamed in the waning stages of a game, Harvard did not hesitate to put the ball in Harvey's hands.

And when the game was on the line, Harvey invariably rose to the occasion. In Harvard's second meeting with Dartmouth this season, Harvey's clutch performance at the free throw line helped secure a narrow 60-56 win on the road. Then, with the score tied in the closing seconds of a non-league battle with Hartford, Harvey hit a running jumper in the lane to give the Crimson the victory as time expired. Clutch, last-second performances became the trademark of Harvey's-and Harvard's-success.

Together with Gellert and sophomore point guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman, Harvey was part of a talented three-guard set that Sullivan employed most of the year. On the strength of this backcourt trio, Harvard more than made up for its deficiencies in size with its speed, passing and defense. Gellert, the Crimson's defensive stopper, led the Ivy League in steals for the second straight year, averaging 2.77 per game. Prasse-Freeman, meanwhile, led the league in assists with 6.3 apg. Both he and Harvey earned All-Ivy honorable mention for their efforts.

What little size Harvard did feature was largely provided by rookie sophomore Brian Sigafoos. At 6-11, Sigafoos was a true center and by midseason, he was a fixture in the starting lineup. It did not take long for him to start contributing-in just his second collegiate start, he chipped in 12 points and 8 rebounds against Hartford.

But ultimately, Harvard's fate was most tied to Clemente. More often that not, as he went, so went the Crimson. It was no surprise, then, that when the senior forward was just 1-of-7 from the three-point line before fouling out against Yale on Jan. 13, Harvard suffered its first league loss. Likewise, when Clemente bounced back with 26 points on the very next night against Brown, Harvard sprinted to an easy 91-69 victory.

A unanimous First Team All-Ivy pick, Clemente finished the year averaging 18.7 ppg, good for second in the league behind Brown's Earl Hunt. He ends his career as Harvard's all-time leader in three-point field goals and ranks fourth on the school's all-time scoring list. He leaves behind no shortage of great moments, none of which will be remembered more fondly than his Herculean effort against the Quakers.

Clemente scored 18 of the Crimson's last 25 points in the first half, building an astonishing lead that the Quakers would never overcome. The win snapped Penn's 25-game conference winning streak and boosted Harvard's league record to 5-2. The momentum certainly carried over into the next night's epic battle with Princeton, as Harvard took a 31-30 edge after the opening half.

Harvard's lead reached double-digits in the second half, and the Crimson was poised to pull off another jarring win. When sophomore guard Brady Merchant connected on a trey with nine minutes left to expand the Crimson's lead to 11, Harvard appeared very much to be a team of destiny.

But the game's end did not come soon enough for the Crimson. Just when Harvard was set to put itself the driver's seat in the Ivy League race, Wente hit his shot, Princeton prevailed and in a flash, the Crimson was never the same.

Perhaps it was cruel, poetic justice that a team that so made its living on last-second heroics would die by it as well.