Robinson’s Star Rises On Bball Court

This offseason, Harvard women’s basketball coach Kathy Delaney-Smith changed the offense, shuffled her cards a little bit, and began a season without a bona fide star for the first time since 1998-1999.

Not since all-everything forward Allison Feaster ’98 graduated has the Crimson been so balanced—and so anonymous.

But senior point guard Laura Robinson, Harvard’s sixth man a year ago, is shedding that anonymity with deadly accuracy from the perimeter and Delaney-Smith’s go-ahead to make things happen from the point.

“Laura Robinson will shock you with where she is with her game right now,” Delaney-Smith said in the weeks leading up to the season opener.

Delaney-Smith turned out to be quite the prognosticator: in four games, Robinson is averaging 11.3 points per game—six higher than her clip in 2004-2005—and is shooting a blistering 67 percent from the three-point line. In a 69-56 win over Alabama State at the DePaul Invitational, Robinson notched a career high 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Eight days later, she matched that effort with 18 more in the Crimson’s 71-58 loss to Fairfield.

Robinson has been the undeniable—and perhaps unanticipated, at least by opposing defenses—sparkplug in the backcourt for Harvard. She and co-captain Jess Holsey are two of the team’s toughest defenders, and Robinson is averaging a career-best 52.9 percent from the field.

“The focus [of our offense] is that everyone needs to be an offensive threat,” Robinson said. “We need all five players looking to score. That’s the mentality that I—as well as the rest of the team—have gone into games with.”

Until this season, Robinson had never started a game for the Crimson. But when Delaney-Smith moved Holsey to the shooting guard spot, Robinson slid in seamlessly at the one. Now Robinson is doing to the opposition what Holsey did at the point last year: expose the holes in a zone defense with a mixture of pull-up jumpers and timely penetration, making her a powerful offensive weapon for the Crimson.

“In our new motion offense, all five players are involved and that’s creating shots for me,” Robinson said. “Last year it was different to come into the game and try to get the hot shooters the ball—this year it’s more about creating shots for other players as well as looking for my own shot.”

The Crimson’s new offense, a medley of inside-outside passing, assertive cuts to the basket and speedy perimeter play, has Harvard looking for all five options more than ever. It’s a different feel for a Crimson program that has featured the eventual All-Ivy Player of the Year in seven of the last eleven seasons.

“As far as scoring goes, we have such a talented team that everyone can score,” Robinson said. “This season, [Delaney-Smith] would prefer there be a balance of scoring rather than one star.”

Delaney-Smith gave her senior point guard the green light in the new offense, and Robinson has yet to disappoint.

She is the Crimson’s second leading scorer behind co-captain Maureen McCaffery.

More impressive than the offensive outpouring, however, is the timeliness of Robinson’s production.

After a demoralizing 97-52 loss to No. 17 DePaul to open the season—a game in which the Crimson never got going offensively—Harvard stared at a 28-17 first half deficit against Alabama State the following night.

Then Robinson sparked a timely 11-3 run to get the Crimson back in it, nailing a three-pointer and adding a layup to pull Harvard within four. The 5’7 guard added nine more points in the second frame to put the pesky Hornets away for good.

Against Fairfield, Robinson went five-of-five in the first half of the game and hit two three-pointers to keep the Crimson afloat after nine first half turnovers.

“I think I’m just being more aggressive—[Delaney-Smith] is always giving us confidence and telling us that everybody has the ability to score points,” Robinson said. “She wants that balance.”

The hot-handed Robinson, as unsuspecting defenses have discovered, is more than happy to provide it.

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.