NOTEBOOK: Harvard Playing for Pride, Not Title

After entering the year with realistic aspirations for the Ivy League crown, and beginning both the regular season and conference schedules promisingly enough to bolster those beliefs, the Harvard men’s basketball team now finds itself in an all-too-familiar position: heading to Philadelphia and New Jersey to play the role of spoiler.

The Crimson’s recent five-game losing streak has dropped the team into a tie for fifth place in the league, just a game out of the Ivy cellar. Breaking the negative momentum engendered by such a swoon is difficult enough, yet to add to the hardship, Harvard will have to do so in the twin dungeons of Ancient Eight hoops.

The Crimson last won at Penn’s Palestra in 1991 and has not beaten the Tigers in Jadwin Gym since 1989. At times coming close to picking up a victory on the southern swing in recent years­—most memorably in 2003’s double overtime loss at Jadwin—Harvard has not been able to break through against the Ps on the road. And with the way the past two weeks have plunged Harvard’s fortunes, a win in either of this weekend’s games would likely be the season’s defining moment.

“It would definitely be a highlight to the season, something to look back on,” senior center Brian Cusworth said.

Beating Penn would grant a huge favor to Princeton, which sits two games back of first and only plays the Quakers once more. Knocking off the Tigers on Saturday would likely push them to the brink of mathematical elimination. While those scenarios are appealing, one cannot help but think what the weekend would have meant had Harvard entered tonight’s game still in the title hunt.

“I don’t know if [a win] redeems [our season], because our goal was to get to the NCAA tournament,” senior swingman Mike Beal added. “It would be good, just to get us back on track...and it’s very obtainable. If we start off better against Penn, than we can do it. We’re going to beat Princeton. I’m not any less confident about our chances now than I was when we were 5-0, or when we were coming into the first Princeton game.”

Although that 5-0 record to start the season seems a distant memory, Harvard can still finish above .500 for the first time since the 2001-02 season by taking at least two of the final four games. By winning all four, the Crimson can also tie the school’s all-time mark for most Division I victories, with 16—although that would mean a road sweep of the Killer P’s, something Harvard has not accomplished since 1985.

FALSE START

To end its three-week drought, Harvard will have to find a way to come out stronger at the start. In the past two weeks, the Crimson has fallen behind in the opening minutes by scores of 10-2 to Princeton, 11-0 to Penn, 10-3 to Brown and 18-9 to Yale. Harvard has generally recovered to play better in the second half, notably outscoring Penn by four after halftime in the 81-68 defeat, but in each game was unable to fully extricate itself from the early hole.

“What happened one hour before the game? How was out warmup tonight? How was our mental health [before the game]? We’ve addressed those issues with the team,” coach Frank Sullivan said.

Getting off to a strong start will be especially important in the Palestra and at Jadwin, where the large, rowdy crowds can bury a visitor. Just as at Yale’s John J. Lee Ampitheater, where Harvard was tormented earlier this season, The Palestra’s raucous student section often gets inside the heads of opposing players.

“A three point lead in somewhere like [The Palestra] might seem like it’s 10, just because the crowd will be going crazy,” junior shooting guard Jim Goffredo said. “A big thing will be to not let the environment get to us.”

DEFENSTRATED DEFENSE

Beyond the issue of bad beginnings, Harvard’s defense has been the chief culprit during the losing streak. The Crimson allowed Penn and Brown to shoot well over 50 percent and Yale to shoot 49 percent in the last three games, raising the team’s field goal percentage defense to .450 for the season.

“We’re working hard for the first 20 seconds [of the shot clock], and then it’s those last 10 seconds—that extra hump we’ve got to get over,” Beal said. “We’re trying to work on sustaining the momentum. Practices have been a lot harder this week than they’ve been since we’ve started playing games, so we have the stamina to keep going.”

Harvard will need that stamina to get back to the defense it played in its four Ivy League victories—when it held opponents to 41 percent shooting—likely the best formula for stopping the team’s longest skid in two years.

—Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer can be reached at cpeiffer@fas.harvard.edu.