Women's Basketball Comeback Bid Falls Short in Overtime

Down by two with less than twenty seconds on the clock in the fourth quarter, co-captain AnnMarie Healy caught a pass from freshman Nani Redford with the shot clock dwindling down.

Healy took a dribble and despite the arms of three Princeton players in her face, she hit the turnaround jumper—overtime.

In overtime, however, the Harvard comeback bid faltered. After scoring on the opening drive, the Tigers (14-4, 3-1 Ivy) scored six in a row and the Crimson (8-11, 3-3) couldn’t make up the deficit late in the extra frame.

Playing against a veteran Princeton squad that has more experience winning, the Crimson’s comeback bid came just a bit short in overtime, 92-83.

Facing a Tigers squad that has won five Ivy League titles in the past six years it was a gritty affair at Lavietes Pavilion on Sunday in a matchup that would feature 14 ties and six lead changes.

“They’re very physical,” senior guard Shilpa Tummala said. “They’re going to grab your jersey, they’re going to set hard screens, they’re going to be gritty, they’re going to box you out—it’s going to be a physical game the entire time. That’s the game of basketball, it’s a physical game, we can’t be wimps about it and complain about it, we just have to match it.”

Late in the fourth quarter, Princeton would take the lead three different times in the last three minutes, but the Crimson would answer each of the Tigers’ last three shots with a shot of their own.

With the exception of Princeton’s last possession, no team would miss a shot for the last three minutes of regulation. The quarter ended with Healy’s tying jumper, sending the game into overtime.

In what started as what appeared to be a blowout early on, the score was tied ten times in the second half and for much of the third and fourth quarters it almost seemed as if neither team was willing to miss.

The Tigers shot 56 percent from the field but Harvard one-upped them, shooting 64 percent from the field and 43 percent from three in the final half.

“We’re trying to get our looks, we’re trying to execute,” said Tummala. “AnnMarie is a great look for us inside. That turnaround jumper for her is money all the time. We try and feed that if we need and there’s also Kit’s three.”

In a first half where Princeton led by as much as 13, the Crimson’s comeback was nothing short of amazing. After turning the ball over on three of its first four possessions, Harvard couldn’t seem to hit a shot early on.

The Tigers’ senior guard Michelle Miller went off for 13 of her 28 points in the first quarter to give Princeton a commanding 19-6 lead seven minutes into the first.

“You’re just supposed to get out to her [Miller] on the catch,” head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “She can go one on one with you and if she crosses you over and hits the pull up we’ll live with some of those, but we gave up too many open threes. It wasn’t any one person, but she shouldn’t have had so many good looks for the open three.”

The Tigers rang off 13 consecutive points before the Crimson could stop the bleeding with a layup from freshman guard Sydney Skinner to cut the lead to 11.

From here Harvard slowly dug into Princeton’s lead despite taking a lot of shots deep into the shot clock, including one from co-captain Kit Metoyer about four feet beyond the arc.

After a high scoring first quarter Harvard managed to slow down the Princeton offense, forcing turnovers and hitting timely shots.

The half ended with a drive from Healy that sent her to the line for two with the Crimson down by one, 29-30. The senior drained both to take the lead at the half.

Tummala and Healy ended up combining for 40 points and 11 rebounds. Coming off the bench, junior forward Destiny Nunley tied her career high with 12.

“I thought we played really well,” Delaney-Smith said. “I liked how we finished. I think we got a little hurt by a rebound or two down the stretch. We had outrebounded them most of the game and then ended up not outrebounding them and I think that was in the overtime and in the last couple minutes. They’re a veteran team and they know how to win. We’re a little less veteran and we’ve got to learn how to win.”

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at tboccelli@college.harvard.edu.