Female Breakout Athlete of the Year: Kit Metoyer

After a tough loss to Dartmouth at home where she scored eight points and struggled from beyond the arc, women’s basketball co-captain Kit Metoyer bounced back the next game in dramatic fashion. Playing at Cornell, she put up a career-high 26 points on 6-of-11 shooting from deep to go with six assists and seven rebounds. After a last second heave from the Big Red took the game to overtime, she scored Harvard’s first four points and added an assist to shut down Cornell in the extra period.

For the Houston native, however, the road to a breakout senior year was far from easy.

In her junior year Metoyer started eight games, often struggling with consistency on both ends of the floor. Playing a little over 20 minutes per game, she averaged five points per game on 18 percent shooting from three and 24 percent from the field.

A year removed from a lackluster season that saw it finish third in the Ivy League with a 7-7 conference record, Harvard women’s basketball had big expectations for Metoyer. As one of only two seniors who saw significant minutes the year before and with a starting rotation expected to feature two freshman guards and three seniors, Metoyer was to be one of the Crimson’s primary options on offense this year.

Despite the pressure, Metoyer didn’t shy away from the limelight. Instead, she blazed a path to be one of the Crimson’s most prolific three-point shooters of all time. She finished her senior year fifth all-time in three-point field goals made with 127 total—73 of which came in her last season alone, a mark good for third all-time in among Harvard players and best in the Ivy League this year.

The journey to her phenomenal season wasn’t without its ups and downs, however. After three years with Metoyer at point guard, head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith came into the season short on offense following the departure of senior standouts Temi Fagbenle and Erin McDonnell, who contributed just under 42 percent of the team’s points during the 2014-2015 season.

“She came in as a point guard and had some skills that you want your point guard to have, but there were some skills she didn’t have that we wanted our point guard to have,” Delaney-Smith said. “She’s a great, great shooter and we weren’t getting the scoring out of her that we wanted to in the point guard spot.”

After dealing with injuries throughout her career, Metoyer’s senior season was the first time she was fully healthy while at Harvard. More significantly, however, it was also the first time she wouldn’t consistently have the ball in her hands.

“We told her at the end of her junior year we wanted her to move to the shooting guard spot and it was primarily to get her shot,” Delaney-Smith said. “We were losing a lot of our shooting power in Temi and Erin.”

After three years at the one spot, Metoyer began her senior season in a completely new position. Early on, the switch was far from easy—through her first four games she averaged just over seven points on 28 percent shooting from the field. As the season went on, however, Metoyer quickly became one of the Crimsons biggest threats on offense, especially from deep.

Along with teammates Shilpa Tummala and AnnMarie Healy, Metoyer was one of only 19 players in the Ivy League to average double digit points a game. She led the team in minutes per game and league in three pointers made.

The shift paid off in a late season game against Cornell at home when Metoyer hit a deep three pointer to keep the Crimson ahead after giving up an eight point lead late in the game. The victory kept the Big Red winless in Cambridge and kept the Crimson in contention for the Ivy League title.

“She wants the ball in her hands so she had to work hard to come out of her comfort zone, and be there to shoot when she got her hands on the ball, and get her feet ready, and come off screens the way we wanted her to come off screens,” Delaney-Smith said. “I think she did a great job doing that.”

She finished the season shooting at a 34 percent clip from beyond the arc, a mark good for ninth in the Ivy League and nearly double her percentage from a year earlier. On the season, she averaged 11.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game. As important as Metoyer’s leadership was on the court, what she did off the court was equally important.

“Bottom line, Kit was just such a great leader,” Healy said. “[She’s] always someone who knows what to say at the right time and knows how to get the team motivated. She’s a great teammate just because she works hard and leads by example.”

Coach Delaney-Smith echoes the praise.

“Her work ethic might be in the top 10 percent of anyone I’ve ever coached,” Delaney-Smith said. “She just has an extraordinary work ethic.”

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at troy.boccelli@thecrimson.com.