NOTEBOOK: Basketball Dons the Cinderella Slipper Once Again

SPOKANE, Wash.— What comes after a fairy tale?

It turns out, for the Harvard men’s basketball team (27-4, 13-1 Ivy), Cinderella can lose a second glass slipper.

With less than five minutes left in Thursday’s NCAA Tournament contest against Cincinnati (27-7, 15-3 American Athletic Conference) and Harvard up by three, Crimson junior wing Wesley Saunders ran a give-and-go with sophomore point guard Siyani Chambers. Saunders took a couple dribbles through the lane, spun, and put up the shot.

Saunders’ trademark fadeaway was good, but so was the subsequent shot taken by Cincinnati co-captain Sean Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick received the ball feet away from the top of the key and drilled a long two-pointer, bringing the deficit back to one possession.

Two possessions later, a pair of Bearcat shots from the free throw stripe cut the Crimson lead to one for the first time since the opening half.

But then Chambers remembered what it was like to celebrate an NCAA Tournament win. And then he delivered.

Co-captain Brandyn Curry received a handoff from Saunders with about 10 seconds left on the shot clock and 2:05 remaining overall. Curry sent it to Chambers, who received the rock near the left wing, dribbled several times, and ended up at the free-throw line. Chambers rose up and buried the shot.

“[Harvard coach Tommy Amaker] says that’s my shot at the free-throw line,” Chambers said. “Coach says if you get there and it’s open, go ahead and take it. So, he believed in me, I’m pretty sure my teammates believed in me, and I believed in myself, and I was able to take it, and I was blessed to make it.”

From that point on, it was all Harvard, and two minutes later, the Crimson advanced to the third round of the Big Dance for the second consecutive year. Amidst “I Believe” chants from its fan section, Harvard pulled off the upset, this time defeating fifth-seeded Cincinnati, 61-57.

“[H]aving [won a postseason game] last year, we know the amazing feelings you get from having an upset type of victory in this great tournament,” Amaker said. “I thought [those plays] were key moments offensively for us.”

It was several defensive plays, however, that closed out the matchup. With 1:33 to go, a loose Bearcat ball was snatched up by Kilpatrick, and the senior took several dribbles towards the basket before making contact with Crimson senior forward Kyle Casey. Casey flew backwards as the whistle blew, and the referee’s arm signaled that it was Harvard ball.

On the next Cincinnati possession, pressure defense from Saunders forced Kilpatrick to lose his dribble. Chambers picked up the loose ball and was fouled at the other end. His one converted free throw on the trip made it a two-possession game, effectively sealing the win for Harvard.

PRESS CREDENTIALS

The scouting report on Cincinnati emphasized one fact in particular: the Bearcats pressured its opponent, trapped its ball handlers, and forced them to make hasty decisions.

After Thursday’s game, Harvard could confirm those reports and almost saw its lead slip away—multiple times—as a result of the Bearcats’ press.

“We turned it over way too many times,” Amaker said. “They knocked it off of us…. We got frustrated at times when we couldn’t really pull away from them enough, when we had chances to do that.”

In the first half, a Crimson nine-point advantage was quickly transformed into a one-point lead as Cincinnati’s trapping press led to several bad passes and ill-advised decisions for Harvard.

With less than seven minutes left in the opening period, Curry attempted to pass out of a Bearcat trap, but his try was deflected, and a Cincinnati fast break ended with an emphatic alley-oop from forward Shaquille Thomas.

In a 28-second span from 4:42 to 4:14, Harvard committed three forced turnovers, equaling its total number of mistakes up until that point. And, thanks to a three-point dagger from Kilpatrick along with a Troy Caupain layup at the 3:57 mark, the Bearcats had made it back into the game. The score was 24-23, and Harvard looked rattled.

The defensive success was nothing unusual for a Cincinnati team that ranks 20th nationally in steals per game with 7.94. Accordingly, in the second half, when the Bearcats needed to pull another trick from up its sleeve, they turned once more to their press.

With just over three minutes remaining in the contest, two free throws from Caupain brought his Cincinnati squad within one, 54-53—the closest the spread had been since the first half. Nine seconds later, junior Steve Moundou-Missi was feeling the pressure that comes with facing one of the best defensive teams in the country. The forward caught the ball about 80 feet from his own hoop, and threw an errant pass that landed near Bearcat co-captain Justin Jackson.

Cincinnati had the ball with the chance to take the lead. Only 120 ticks remained in the game.

However, a Jackson missed layup and the clutch Chambers jumper wiped away many of the ill consequences of Harvard’s trouble with the press, enabling it to sneak by Jackson, who is 21st in the nation in blocks per game, and the entire feisty Bearcat squad.

“Their press was really good,” Casey said. “They put the pressure on. They hounded us for a lot of the game, and we had some difficulties handling it for a while, and then we figured it out. I wouldn’t say we’ve played against someone with that intensity for so long, but I think we were prepared for it.”

MONTE-VERTIGO

While Harvard hadn’t played Cincinnati in almost 40 years—the last time the two squads faced off was in the 1975-1976 season, when Harvard won, 77-76—certain players recognized familiar faces on the opposing bench.

Moundou-Missi and Jackson went to Montverde Academy together, and heading into Thursday’s matchup, both players remembered the days when they put on the same color uniform.

The fact that the two former-teammates would be matched up against one another was the first comment that Moundou-Missi made at the Crimson press conference on Selection Sunday. Four days later, the first question that Jackson received was about the Crimson junior, who Jackson called “cool,” “smart,” and “quiet.”

On Thursday afternoon, however, Moundou-Missi’s play was loud enough.

The junior was given the assignment of guarding Jackson, Cincinnati’s second-leading scorer. While Jackson connected at a 54.2 percent clip throughout the regular season, he was held to only five-of-15 shooting from the field in Thursday’s matchup.

Moundou-Missi, however, provided a dynamic performance on both ends of the floor. In the opening minutes of the game, the forward received a pass from sophomore wing Agunwa Okolie on the left baseline. He put the ball on the hardwood, and went up and under the basket, scooping the ball into the hoop.

His block with 8:05 left in the contest perhaps best encapsulated his defensive performance. After a Chambers missed pull-up jumper, Kilpatrick grabbed the outlet pass and took off the down the court. He looked to have an easy lane to the basket and laid the ball up, but Moundou-Missi came streaking down the paint, seemingly out of nowhere, and swatted the ball away, keeping Harvard’s eight-point advantage safe.

“Steve is our best post defender,” Amaker said. “He moves his feet very well and he’s very strong and can get up on the backboard to rebound it, but also [can] challenge and block shots…. [However,] we were a little lucky. Jackson missed a lot of things around the rim that I think ordinarily…he makes.”

—Staff writer Juliet Spies-Gans can be reached at Juliet.spiesgans@thecrimson.com.