Women's Basketball's Winter Slump Goes On

It’s been a long, ugly December for the Harvard women’s basketball team, and it got even uglier in a low-scoring slugfest against Marist on Saturday.

The Crimson netted just 39 points in its sixth consecutive loss, a 44-39 defeat to the Red Foxes in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Freshman guard Emily Tay helped Harvard (2-7) fight back from a 12-point second half deficit to claim a two-point lead with 3:49 remaining, but the Crimson scored just two points in the final four minutes and surrendered yet another road game late in the second half.

“It’s heartbreaking—we’re losing games that we know we can win,” sophomore guard Lindsay Hallion said. “We know we can beat the teams we’ve been playing lately, but it’s just hard to swallow when you’re trying to do anything you can to get out of a losing streak.”

“Winning would cure everything,” Hallion added. “We know that.”

The six-game losing streak is the team’s longest since the 2000-01 season, when Harvard dropped seven consecutive games in another December slump.

The Crimson has not won a game since it defeated Rhode Island on Nov. 22.

On Saturday, both teams were cold all night—but Harvard was colder when it counted most, and Marist (5-4) closed the game on a 10-2 run to claim its fifth consecutive win. What has plagued the Crimson in each of its six previous losses—poor shooting from the field and too many turnovers—again proved fatal on Saturday.

Harvard trailed all game save for a 50-second stretch late in the second half, and the Red Foxes scored 16 points off of 20 Crimson turnovers. Marist built a 24-18 halftime lead in a game lacking any sustained offense and built a 35-23 lead behind an 11-5 run to open the second frame. The Red Foxes capitalized on four Crimson turnovers in the first five minutes of the second half and held Harvard to just two field goals.

The Crimson shot only 17-of-54 from the field on the night and shot 13 percent from beyond the arc. Marist was hardly better—the Red Foxes went an abysmal 29.1 percent from the floor and 42.9 percent from the line.

“In a game that is such a battle and is such a close, low-scoring game, a run of even a couple of baskets can totally change the game,” Hallion said. “Everything is just magnified in that kind of game—a small mistake or a turnover that might have gone to a basket can really cost you.”

But Harvard reclaimed momentum on a 14-0 run sparked by Tay, who finished with a career-high 12 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field. Tay, who has seen more minutes since co-captain Jess Holsey went down with a hand injury two weeks ago, was one of the few bright spots for the Crimson on Saturday.

She nailed a jumper at 14:21 of the second half to start the run and added four more points and an assist to give Harvard its only lead of the game at 37-35.

“She’s really stepped up,” Hallion said of Tay. “She’s doing a great job. She’s going to help us more and more every game the more she gets into it.”

Tay’s efforts, however, were not enough to carry the Crimson in the final minutes. Harvard finished the game 1-of-5 from the floor and saw yet another momentous second half comeback erased by poor shooting during crunch time.

Marist’s Julianne Viani scored five quick points after Harvard stole the lead on Tay’s jumper, and the ice-cold Crimson never threatened again.

“People tensed up in the last couple of minutes when we were in a position to win,” McCaffery said. “We have to keep that confidence through the whole game, which is really hard when you’re on a losing streak like this.”

Harvard looks for its first December win in a Wednesday night home tilt against Providence, one of four games over winter vacation.

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