NOTEBOOK: Housman Leads Harvard To Victory

He’s the team leader in assists, steals, and minutes played. He’s hitting 41 percent of his shots from the field. He’s drawn enough fouls to get to the line 58 times—15 fewer than captain Matt Stehle, but 26 more than the third-best mark on the team.

He’s freshman point guard Drew Housman, and his rookie campaign continues to grow more unbelievable with each passing game.

"His development has been strong, right from the first day of practice," Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. "It's continuing now, and he's feels confident enough to put the ball on the floor."

Housman’s latest chapter was a 21-point, three-assist, and three-steal performance that helped save an out-of-rhythm Harvard squad from a disappointing home loss to Colgate (5-6).

Trailing 53-47 with 6:51 to go, the Crimson (8-3) needed a spark, and the 5’11 freshman provided it. Housman kicked off a 13-0 Harvard run with a jumper off a long offensive rebound and capped the spurt with a free throw. He added a three pointer and another free throw in between to account for seven points in that span, as Harvard took an insurmountable 60-53 lead with 1:06 remaining and walked away with a 68-59 win.

"He continues to impress," Stehle said. "He kept us close in the second half and hit that big three that put us ahead for good, so you can't say enough about his performance so far."

Housman recorded 12 of his 21 points at the stripe, as the Crimson overcame a 36 percent shooting night by getting to the line 39 times and converting 30.
 
"Earlier this season, he was wondering, 'How do you make contact in college?'" Sullivan said. "In high school it's easy, because guys will just foul you, but college guys are a little more definitive in terms of how they put their hands. I feel good that he's getting more confident about driving to the basket and getting fouled."

EVENT STAPH

Junior guard Jim Goffredo returned from a staph infection, for which he had surgery last Thursday, to record 13 points on 3-of-6 shooting.

But Goffredo’s bigger contribution came on the defensive end, as he drew two critical charges on Colgate guard Alvin Reed in the second half.

After the Raiders had eliminated an early 11-point deficit to pull within two, 41-39, Reed sprinted down the court on a fast break and attacked the basket. Goffredo had him lined up just in front of the basket and took the hit to tag Reed with his fourth foul with 11:44 to go.

Upon his return to the lineup, Colgate had pulled ahead by as many as six, but Harvard began chipping away and grabbed the lead back at 54-53. After some up-and-down action, Reed once again took the ball hard to the basket and once again Goffredo was there to draw the charge and send the Raiders point guard to the bench for good. The Crimson would go on to outscore Colgate 14-6 over the remaining 4:34.

"Reed fouling out when he did was an important thing for us," Sullivan said. "For Jimmy to come out of the hospital and take two charges right out of the bed was pretty good, especially on their most significant player."

Reed led the Raiders with 14 points, but played only 22 minutes due to foul trouble.

BOARDED UP

While Harvard might have been struggling from the field, it was very opportunistic about correcting its mistakes, scoring 17 second-chance points on the contest and winning the rebounding battle 43-24.

"If we're not going to take care of the ball all that well, and we're not going to shoot the ball all that well, then we need to rebound the basketball," Sullivan said.

Colgate entered the game as one of the top 10 defensive rebounding teams in the nation, but the Crimson corralled 15 of the 33 boards on the offensive end, one of the team’s best performances of the season.

"They were ninth in the nation coming in, so I was really surprised that we got so many," Stehle said. "I don't think that most of our rebounds are coming from our bigger guys. They're coming more from our guards."

Harvard also hauled in 28 of the 34 rebounds on the defensive glass, holding the Raiders to just eight second-chance points on the contest.

THREE-POINT PLAY

The Crimson won its eighth game Tuesday night, tying the most non-conference wins of any team in the Sullivan era. The best non-conference winning percentage of any Sullivan squad is 66.7 percent, meaning that Harvard would need to win one of its last two non-league games to break that record...The Crimson went 8-for-8 from the line over the final 47 seconds to seal the victory...Harvard improved to 8-0 in games it has led at the half, while it remains 0-3 in games in which it has trailed.

--Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.