W. Basketball Hangs On, Beats Terriers

BOSTON—Winning big is never easy for the Harvard women’s basketball team. The Crimson built a 27-point lead over the first 27 minutes against Boston University last night, but then in an instant, the momentum swung in full reverse.

With eight seconds left, Harvard’s seemingly insurmountable lead was in serious danger of being surmounted, as the Terriers cut the deficit to just two. Just as in Friday’s season opening win Syracuse, freshman Jessica Holsey was sent to the line with the chance to ice the game, and she did just that in hitting both shots for the 78-74 final.

But unlike Friday’s win, the Crimson (2-0) wasn’t expecting any last-minute foul shots to be meaningful after leading BU (0-2) by such a comfortable margin in the second half.

Harvard won despite 32 turnovers and an 11-minute field goal drought to close the game.

“They used the clock and didn’t attack,” said Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith in explanation of the slowdown. “There was nobody who was looking to step up and be the shooter. I think we played tight. I think we played scared. We played not to lose instead of to win.”

Harvard led 47-33 at the half and outscored BU 18-5 through the first 6:11 after the intermission, before the Terriers starting taking and making shots instead of turning the ball over. BU’s preseason all-conference star Katie Terhune punished Harvard the most with 19 points—14 in the second half. She played the last 20 minutes after missing 11 in the first half with foul trouble.

“We got caught up in the other team’s momentum,” said captain Kate Ides. “They started hitting shots. We missed a few. And I think we froze up, got nervous about them catching up and lost confidence a bit.”

Holding and expanding large leads has not been a Crimson strong point in recent years. Delaney-Smith frequently cites the team’s youth—Ides is the team’s only senior this season—as the reason for that phenomena.

“It’s kind of characteristic of our team,” junior forward Hana Peljto said about the team’s struggles. “We’re hoping to get it out of the way early.”

The way the game ended did not detract from the way the game began, however. With the victory, Harvard did avenge a 93-77 loss to BU from last season—its worst defensive outing of the year. Having also beaten Syracuse in its season opener, the Crimson has already improved upon two of last year’s six losses.

“Last year BU was probably one of our worst losses,” said Peljto, who led Harvard with 25 points and 10 rebounds. “To come in here and beat an even better team than BU was last year, that was pretty great for us.”

Harvard built its lead in spite of the turnovers by making 64 percent of its shots. Unlike in its passive second half, the Crimson passed aggressively and set up easy looks from all over the court.

Junior Tricia Tubridy led Harvard with six assists and was behind only Peljto with nine rebounds. Her three-point shot at the 11:35 mark was the Crimson’s last field goal of the game.

Six different players hit three-point shots for the Crimson, including two each from Holsey and sophomore Rochelle Bell. Ides, who found her scoring touch both inside and out, and Holsey each netted 12 points.

The Terriers accumulated 22 steals for the afternoon with their consistent pressure on the ball and on Harvard’s passing lanes.

Junior point guard Dirkje Dunham accounted for 13 of the 32 Crimson turnovers in a full 40 minutes of action. Delaney-Smith admitted after the game that she would have to rethink her decision to not give Dunham any rest.

Delaney-Smith said she would also have to rethink her decision to keep junior guard Beverly Moore on the bench. Moore tallied 14 points in the season opener, but Delaney-Smith only gave Moore three minutes of playing time based on how she expected Moore would handle BU’s pressure.

Regrets aside, Harvard can salvage some confidence from its victories going into a tough weekend of action at Vanderbilt, ranked No. 8 by USA Today and No. 11 by the AP. Harvard will likely play Vanderbilt at 3 p.m. on Sunday if it can beat Central Michigan on Saturday.

Vanderbilt is also 2-0, having played the exact same opponents as Harvard. The Commodores beat Syracuse 73-65 and BU 68-51. But Vanderbilt actually trailed the Terriers 23-22 at halftime. Harvard leaves BU having scored more than twice as many first half points as the Commodores did against the Terriers.

“I think we’re really confident going in there,” Ides said of the upcoming trip. “For a while we had an incredible lead.”

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.