NOTEBOOK: Wright Hits 1,000 in Disappointing Loss

BRONX, N.Y.—Entering Tuesday night’s matchup between the No. 21/22 Harvard men’s basketball team and Fordham, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that co-captain Keith Wright would notch the eight points he needed to reach 1,000 for his career.

After all, Wright, who had scored in double figures in 35 of the Crimson’s past 43 games heading into Thursday night, was set to face a Fordham defense that isn’t exactly know for its stinginess.

And early on, it looked as if Wright was well on his way to becoming just the 27th player in program history to join the 1,000-point club.

With 2:48 to play in the first half, Wright scored his fifth and sixth points of the game, finishing a layup off a Brandyn Curry pass to put Harvard ahead by six. Then, just seconds before the end of the first half, Wright was fed in the post again. He made a move toward the basket and tossed a shot at the rim as he was fouled, but the ball went in and out, and the senior was forced to earn his points at the line.

Wright sunk the first, but his second attempt missed, and he went into the locker room one point shy of 1,000.

It took him 18 minutes and 56 seconds to pick up that final point.

After going 3-for-3 from the field in the first half, Wright did not register a shot attempt in the entire second period and finished the game with three shots, a season-low. It was not until a late free throw that Wright picked up his eighth—and final—point of the night.

“They were playing zone, so part of that is it’s tough to get the ball inside,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “He could have taken more shots than three. It’s not just about us getting him the ball. We’ve got to be able to see if there are ways that he can get it off the backboard or get to the foul line.”

Getting Wright going offensively has been key to the Crimson’s success. So far this season, Harvard is 8-0 when the co-captain reaches double figures. When he is held to under 10 points, the Crimson is 4-2.

DRY SPELL

Amaker often remarks that the Crimson’s offensive strength lies in its ability to play inside-out. If opponents focus too much on defending Wright in the post, Harvard can swing it to an open shooter on the perimeter. And if opponents extend their defense to get out on the Crimson’s shooters, Harvard can dump it out down to Wright and let the big man go to work.

On most nights, if one half of the Harvard offense is faltering, the other half picks up the slack. That wasn’t the case Thursday.

While Wright was ineffective against a tough Fordham zone defense, the Crimson’s shooters had even greater struggles, as the team went 20-of-55 from the field and 8-of-30 from beyond the arc.

“Certainly our shooting percentage was horrific,” said Amaker, whose team had its worst shooting performance since playing Florida State in November. “No matter what you do, if you can’t throw it in the ocean sitting out on the row boat, it’s not going to look like you're prepared for anything.”

Despite taking a season-high 30 three-point attempts—nearly double its average of 17.8 attempts per game—the Crimson was not unhappy with its shot selection.

“We got a lot of open shots,” co-captain Oliver McNally said. “I don’t think that we were jacking or anything like that. It didn’t have that feel to it.”

Fordham coach Tom Pecora felt the Rams caught a break with the Crimson’s off shooting night.

“[Laurent] Rivard’s just a tremendous shooter,” said Pecora of the Harvard sophomore, who went 1-of-8 from deep. “We got lucky the way he shot tonight.”

But Amaker noted that it was more than luck that accounted for the Crimson’s shooting woes.

“Certainly [Fordham] had a lot to do with it—how active they were defensively and how aggressive they were closing out on our shooters,” he said. “I’d like to think that we will shoot better at some point as we’ve done in the past, but give them credit.”

OUT OF LUCK

Before Thursday night’s matchup, the Crimson had taken care of business when it was supposed to, winning all of the games it was favored in and dropping just one contest to then-No. 9 UConn. Even so, it seemed as though Harvard’s luck was starting to run out.

Taking on a mediocre Florida Atlantic squad on Dec. 22, the Crimson trailed the Owls by two with 10:03 to play before eventually winning by 12. Playing a Boston College team picked to finish dead last in the ACC on Dec. 29, Harvard fell behind by 11, 14-3, less than six minutes in before storming back to win by 21. And then against a talented Saint Joseph’s squad on Dec. 31, Harvard came back from an 11-point second-half deficit to capture a five-point win.

“We were concerned coming in,” Amaker said. “We talked about how getting off to a better start would hopefully allow us to get in a flow. It didn’t necessarily go that way for us here tonight.

McNally echoed his coach’s sentiments.

“We got lucky in a couple games,” he said. “We can’t be living like that. We used to be a team that got a lot of quick starts, and we haven’t been doing that. We’ve got to get back to finding whatever that was.”