BASKETBALL '07: Star Power

Reka Cserny ’05 was the last Harvard standout to win it, but for the last decade, the Ivy League Player of the Year award has spent a bulk of its time in Lavietes Pavilion.

Cserny took home the honor after spearheading Harvard’s come-from-behind Ivy title run in 2005. Hana Pejlto ’04 was a two-time Ivy Player of the Year, and Allison Feaster ’98, arguably the best player ever to suit up for Harvard, won the award three consecutive times.

And after spending a year each in Providence and Hanover, the Player of the Year award might well find itself in the comfortable and familiar confines of Lavietes at the end of this season.

The only thing standing in Harvard’s way? Too many good players taking turns in the spotlight.

Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith might have her most balanced team ever, with the Crimson getting points in the post and on the perimeter—and from almost everybody who steps on the court.

In the end, everybody scores for Harvard, but the Ivy coaches have historically given the award to the league’s statistical standouts—something that irks Delaney-Smith and could deprive more than one member of her team of the honor.

“To be honest, I don’t have respect for the Player of the Year,” Delaney-Smith says. “It’s important, but until coaches clean up their act, it’s not important to me. Coaches look at the stats and that’s how they vote. At the top of the list, it should be that you make your teammates better—whether it’s your energy, your leadership, your assists, your defense.”

“I’m angry about it, because a Lindsay Hallion should be a leading candidate for that kind of award,” she adds.

Hallion, a co-captain and the team’s senior point guard, is a do-everything contributor for the Crimson, running the offense and shredding defenses with a silky spot-up jumper.

She’s just one of a bevy of threats for the Harvard offense, which led the Ivies with 67.7 points per game a year ago.

Hallion’s backcourt mate, junior Emily Tay, has the offensive firepower to turn heads this season and may be the Crimson’s best statistical option for Player of the Year. She was Harvard’s leading scorer last year with 12.9 points per game, has a killer crossover, and can finish in the paint.

There’s also junior forward Katie Rollins, whom roommate Tay calls “the best post player in the Ivy League.”

And, as opposing teams learned last year, you can never forget about junior sharpshooter Niki Finelli, whose big numbers from the three-point line proved indispensable during Harvard’s title run last year. She went 6-for-7 from beyond the arc against Penn last season in an 87-74 win.

“A lot of people have the potential to have a breakout season and even without one [would] be a candidate for Player of the Year,” Rollins says. “But it’s going to take a team effort for any individual to get there. We have to use our talent as a team and that could put the spotlight on any of us.”

Rollins references the Crimson’s balance—a lethal combination of speed at the guard spot and finishing power in the post—as imperative to both the success of Harvard’s Ivy title defense and any postseason honors given to one of the team’s stars.

The Crimson’s balance and depth are its strongest points, making it likely that more than one Harvard player will distinguish herself among the Ivy elite this season.

“It’s hard to predict, just because we’re so talented and have so much potential across so many players and levels,” Finelli says. “It’s hard to pinpoint one person consistently, because I feel like on any given night it can be anybody’s night.”

“I think any one of us could get it, because we each bring so many different things,” Tay adds. “Niki is our shooter, Hallion is the ultimate point guard, and Katie dominates the post. Any one of us could be it.”

That offensive balance drove opposing defenses crazy last season, as Harvard torched the Ivy League with a 13-1 record and 10 double-digit conference wins.

It was balance, not a lone offensive standout—like 2007 Player of the Year Ashley Taylor, who carried Dartmouth with 17.3 points per game— that earned the Crimson an Ivy title and a precious berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Delaney-Smith, just happy to cut the nets down in March, won’t focus on individual accolades where team success is concerned.

“Sharing the load—that’s what I want,” Delaney-Smith says. “That’s the way this team will achieve its goals. You’re harder to play that way. I’m deep enough that I don’t need any one player to be dominant.”

Last year, Harvard’s balance was instrumental in the late stretch of the Crimson’s Ivy run, as other one-star teams had to contend with defenses that had adjusted during the second round of the Ivy schedule.

Taylor was Dartmouth’s high scorer in 20 of its 29 games. Princeton’s Meghan Cowher led the Tigers in scoring 20 times out of 28.

Harvard, by contrast, had six different players lead the team in scoring last year.

Perhaps more telling: Harvard was the only Ivy team with three players who averaged double digits in scoring last year.

And the Crimson ran away with the Ivy crown.

No matter the pedigree of the Player of the Year award, Delaney-Smith and company would prefer an all-expenses-paid return trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“[Player of the Year is] so down on my list of focuses, to be honest,” Delaney-Smith says. “I think it’s more satisfying to win the Ivy title and have a team effort. And the reason we win titles is because they can’t zone in on one person.”

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