NOTEBOOK: Sophomores Show Growth in Victory

Last year, then-freshmen AnnMarie Healy, Shilpa Tummala, and Kit Metoyer combined for 49 points through the entire 2012-13 campaign. This season, the trio of sophomores on the Harvard women’s basketball team is just a point shy of that mark in just three contests.

Healy, Tummala, and Metoyer together chipped in 20 of a total 30 points from the bench during the Crimson’s 76-67 win over crosstown rival Boston University on Tuesday night at Lavietes Pavilion. Senior guard Jasmine Evans notched a crucial 10 points and performed under pressure, making six of eight attempts from the charity stripe.

Metoyer, a 5’10” guard out of Houston, Texas, spent 18 minutes in the game, drilled an early trey, and split duties as playmaker with junior guard Ali Curtis.

Tummala, who missed nearly the entire Ivy season last year with an injury, was hot in the home opener, with a career-high 14 points.

“I think she’s excited to get her game back to where she knows it can be, and this was definitely the closest she’s come,” coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “I’m sure she feels good about knowing she’s on her way.”

Tummala proved efficient and well-rounded, with three successful three-point conversions for offensive steam and a powerful block while Healy, a forward who was the leading scorer among freshmen last year, was also a driving presence in the low post and nabbed six rebounds.

STICKY FINGERS

Turnovers have always been a buzzword for Delaney-Smith and her squad. After relinquishing 20 possessions in a loss to DePaul and 29 in a win over Cal Poly last weekend, the Crimson played a tighter game with just 15 turnovers. Last season, Harvard averaged just over 17 turnovers per contest, always a sore spot even in a Crimson win.

Harvard held on firm during the first half, giving up the ball just six times as the squad ran a quick transition offense and established an inside presence. Co-captain Christine Clark, who occasionally had trouble with turnovers last season, averaging three per contest, didn’t give the ball away once.

“I thought that we played the first half pretty well, and that was a lot of things,” Clark said. “That was defense. That was pushing the ball. We took care of the ball pretty well.”

While the Crimson may have kept a hand on the ball throughout the contest, Delaney-Smith was quick to point at the opposition for the lowered number of turnovers.

“I think that the lack of turnovers is because BU didn’t do anything to cause turnovers,” Delaney-Smith said. “Rather than crediting ourselves, it was a component of how BU played us.”

A TALE OF TWO HALVES

Despite finishing the game with a nine-point edge and seeing a lead balloon to over 20 points during the contest, Harvard played the game as if in two completely different halves.

“We got the win, so that’s good, but it’s still not the way we wanted to come out and play them,” Clark said. “The capability that we had to beat this team by we didn’t meet. We met it the first half, and then the second half [we didn’t]. We need to figure it out and have a better second half because we really just dropped off.”

After besting BU to the best of their abilities during the first 20 minutes, Harvard was both outscored and outrebounded by the Terriers during the second stanza. As BU established itself as a threat in the paint, the best Harvard could do was draw the foul. The Crimson netted 21 of its 38 second-half points from the charity stripe, including a four-for-four performance from Clark and three foul shots by senior Melissa Mullins in the final 30 seconds.

“We have the ability to press and run, and we have not been able to sustain either of those things so far in our first three games,” Delaney-Smith said. “We are deep enough to be able to press and run. We have fallen short in what we are capable of so far.”

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordelia.mendez@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @CrimsonCordelia.