Strong Second Half Pushes Women's Hoops Past Brown

Throughout the season, the Harvard women’s basketball team has followed a similar progression in the course of a game: start slow, finish strong. But even without playing 40 minutes of perfect basketball, the Crimson has been able to find a way to win.

Last Friday night, it was another tale of two halves—a sloppy start followed by a solid second half—for Harvard (17-7, 7-2 Ivy), as it left Pizzatola Sports Center with a 65-54 win against host Brown (7-18, 4-7). The victory gave the Crimson its sixth-straight victory, and its seven wins in the Ivy League is second only behind Princeton.

“Brown is athletic and scrappy, and they’re that underdog with nothing to lose,” said Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. “They’re deep, they’re young, they’re athletic, and they play really hard. It’s a tough matchup for us because they’re stronger than their record shows for it.”

“It was a lot closer than it needed to be,” added freshman Victoria Lippert, who had eight points on the night. “But we picked it up, and we were able to close out when we needed to.”

The Bears held the advantage over the Crimson for most of the first half. After scoring the first five points of the game, Brown extended its lead to 11-5 in the next four minutes with a layup from forward Natalie Bonds, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds on the night. A series of turnovers and rushed offensive sets by Harvard would enable the Bears to pull ahead, 22-13, with seven minutes to go in the half.

But the Crimson would finally awake from its slumber, and as a result, ended the first half with a 14-2 run of its own to go up by five, 29-24.

Contributing to the slow start was the fact that junior forward Emma Markley found herself in foul trouble early on in the game. And though her minutes and numbers–21 minutes, 15 points, and seven rebounds–were far from extraordinary, her role as a sparkplug for the team helped her teammates every minute she was on the court.

“Emma’s a beast,” Lippert said. “She always brings this intensity that’s really contagious. Even though she was in foul trouble, the minute she was in, she was a huge contributor. She really makes it happen for us.”

Though having its leading scorer on the bench caused many of Harvard’s offensive woes, it was the 12 turnovers the Crimson amassed over the first half that allowed the Bears to stay in the game.

“If you look at the turnovers, it was really uncharacteristic of Christine [Matera] and Brogan [Berry],” Delaney-Smith said. “That’s just not how they’ve played all year. We took quick shots, rushed our offense, and that led to the turnovers.”

Though the Bears were able to crawl back into the game at the beginning of the second half by going on a 17-8 run, it was clear that Harvard had finally settled down and would play its brand of basketball to get the victory.

“We talked about that [at] halftime,” Delaney-Smith said. “We tried to run our sets and tried be a little more patient in our decision making, and I think that, as a result, we shot better.”

Sophomore Brogan Berry, who had 12 points in the game, came up big in the second half, as her trey put the Crimson back on top with just under three minutes to go.

An and-one from Markley and a pair of clutch free throws from freshman forward Miriam Rutzen and junior guard Jackie Alemany closed out the deal to end the game.

Even with an 11-point victory, Lippert was critical of her team’s play.

“It really wasn’t one of our best games,” Lippert said. “We played pretty poorly throughout. Brogan had some really nice feeds and and-ones, Christine hit a couple threes, and we were able to pull away, but on the whole, we have to do better than that.”

Delaney-Smith was much more sympathetic to her team’s performance.

“As you know, we’re kind of in what Harvard fondly calls ‘midterms season,’ and that’s always a consideration,” Delaney-Smith said. “Our hope is that we rise above that, and I think that we in fact did. Could we have done better? Yes, but when you’re on the road and you have all those considerations that you have right now, I was really pleased that we came out with the win.”

—Staff writer Kevin T. Chen can be reached at ktchen@fas.harvard.edu.