Women’s Basketball, Led By Gabby Anderson, Scores Season-Opening Victory Over UMass

In front of a 750-person crowd at Lavietes Pavilion, the Harvard women’s basketball team started its season off with a bang by defeating the UMass Minutewomen, 71-58, on Monday night.

The Crimson (1-0, 0-0 Ivy) enjoyed contributions from familiar weapons and played opportunistic basketball, capitalizing on costly turnovers from UMass (0-1, 0-0 Atlantic 10) en route to its third straight victory over the Minutewomen.

While Harvard returned almost all of its starters from last season’s 16-12 squad — which lost in the first round of Ivy Madness to Columbia — it was a typically unsung contributor who spearheaded the Crimson’s offensive attack against UMass: junior Gabby Anderson.

Anderson dropped a career-high 20 points on the Minutewoman on a 7-14 shooting performance from the field, sinking four threes and also contributing two blocks and three steals on defense. The guard from Columbus, Ohio, was an overbearing presence on the court, marking the most impressive game of her Harvard career.

In a postgame interview with ESPN, Anderson credited her teammates for encouraging her to keep shooting early in the game.

“That right there is why I kept going and started hitting shots,” she said, as her teammates mobbed around her to celebrate her coming-out party.

Both teams played sloppy basketball early on, but the Minutewoman came out on top of the turnover trade, racing to a 7-0 lead. The Crimson battled back, though, with Anderson assisting on eight of the first 10 Harvard points.

The teams continued to trade blows into the end of the first period, with senior Katie Krupa missing a three-pointer to cement a 15-12 deficit for the Crimson entering the second quarter.

The Crimson elevated its level of play in the second as the Minutewomen’s turnover struggles continued, handing Harvard seven free possessions in the quarter. Anderson ascended as the Minutewomen disassembled, notching two steals, two rebounds, a block, and seven points in a four-minute span. Her first lay-up of that sequence gave the Crimson the lead, and the team would never look back.

At the business end of the fourth quarter, the Minutewomen gave the home crowd a scare, cutting the lead to just three with under two minutes to go. However, another junior guard, Saniyah Glenn-Bello, came in clutch for the Crimson, sinking a three with 44 seconds left to give Harvard breathing room, 64-58.

After a few perfunctory exchanges of free throws, the Crimson had put the finishing touches on a solidly-executed opening-day victory.

Apart from Anderson, the Crimson saw strong performances from senior Elena Rodriguez, who shot an efficient 80% from the field, as well as star guard and two-time First Team All-Ivy selection Harmoni Turner. Turner had an off shooting day, sinking just one of her five attempts from deep, but delivered her trademark lockdown defense, grabbing five steals and initiating several fast break chances for points.

With the home crowd left satisfied, the Crimson will jet off to the Midwest for a Thursday night clash with Indiana in Bloomington. As part of its non-conference schedule leading up to Ivy play, the team will also journey to Maine, Illinois, and upstate New York before it opens Ivy play against Yale in New Haven on Jan. 4.

The Crimson will tip off against the Hoosiers this Thursday, Nov. 7 at 7:00 p.m.

—Staff writer Jack K. Silvers can be reached at jack.silvers@thecrimson.com.