Around the Ivies: Chambers Key For the Crimson's Success Down Stretch

Everyone in the gym could see it coming.

As Columbia senior Jeff Coby’s three rattled through the net—completing the Lions’ comeback from a 17-point halftime deficit—junior co-captain Siyani Chambers began motioning for the inbound. Harvard coach Tommy Amaker lets his players play through these situations, trying to catch the defense before it’s set; his floor general was ready to go.

Chambers brought the ball up, scarcely looking at trailing senior wing Wesley Saunders. By the time he started his drive, Saunders was still ambling up the right side—sliding into position for the dribble handoff play Harvard ran in similar situations against UMass and Brown.

Columbia point guard Maodo Lo picked Chambers up, shading over to make the left-handed Cham   bers finish with his right. Then came the hesitation dribble, a quick bit of separation and the flick. The ball splashed through the net for the ensuing game winner, and Crimson fans heaved a sigh of relief.

As the Ivy League race barrels to a head, Chambers remains the most intriguing part of the whole puzzle. He is not the league’s best player—heck, his coach readily gives the “team’s best player” title to backcourt mate Saunders. Assessing his play—and value to the team—is complicated.

After Amaker stressed before the season his goal for Chambers to improve his decision-making and shot selection, the junior’s shooting marks are down across the board for a second-straight year. His turnover ratio is nearly 21 percent, and he has a rock-bottom 42.5 percent effective field goal percentage.

But what he can give you is harder to measure. Since arriving on campus, he’s been the team’s primary ball handler and an on-court presence; elected a captain after his sophomore year, Amaker noted Wednesday that the team’s youngest rotation player has become its vocal leader. On a team struggling for offense, Chambers sprints on every rebound—creating as many “secondary break” opportunities as possible, looking for easy points on every drive.

His defense has improved drastically since his freshman year, with his defensive rating dropping nearly 10 points. By any measure, he’s the team’s best clutch player. Chambers has shot eight-of-13 in the final two minutes of single-possession games in his career, leaving a litany of opponents empty-handed.

Freshman year it was BU, driving right and creating space for a step-back jumper as time expired. Sophomore year was Cincinnati, when Chambers nailed a crucial jumper late to clinch the victory. In December, he nailed a three at the end of regulation to send his team into overtime against Vermont.

After the Vermont jumper, Chambers turned to his bench. The most effusive Crimson player was stoic, staring down his teammates with unbridled satisfaction and a touch of smugness. The point guard carries himself with the cocksureness of someone who’s won everywhere he’s gone.

It’s not misplaced.

The junior is a staggering 54-20 in his career at Harvard. He made his high school varsity team in eighth grade, teaming up with Royce White as a freshman to take home his first state title. When White left, little changed—Chambers made it a trifecta of state championships. His senior year, he averaged 30 points a game in single-handedly willing his team to third place.

His freshman year, he led all Division I freshmen with 5.7 assists a game—taking on a leadership position as, in the wake of the withdrawal of two of its best players, the team coalesced around him. Shooting 42 percent from three, he and Saunders were the league’s best backcourt. Then-senior Christian Webster ’13 noted, “Laurent [Rivard ’14] and I are the captains, but he’s the leader.”

In many ways, this Crimson team has deeper shades of 2012 than 2013. Harvard hasn’t blown out opponents as it did last year, giving away double-digit leads in half of its league games. Chambers noted Wednesday with more than a hint of disgust that the team has struggled to finish games.

As the team kicks off its stretch run this weekend—Saturday starts a stretch of four straight games against the rest of the league’s top five—no player will be more important to its success. And when it comes time to finish, the ball will be in his hands.

On to the games:

CORNELL AT YALE:

Stop the presses; Yale solved pot brownies.

No, seriously. The study’s lead author compared the desire of baked college students to eat inhuman amounts of Doritos to hitting the accelerator in your car instead of the brake. In this realm of ill-advised analogies, drunken public urination seems quite similar to giving your Valentine a turnip instead of a cupcake.

Pick: Yale

PRINCETON AT DARTMOUTH:

The league’s sneakiest rivalry rears its head again this weekend. The Big Green crushed the Tigers by 31 in football this year, following its 28-24 victory on the season’s final week last year that denied Princeton an outright title. On the football field, the teams play for arguably the coolest trophy in sports, the Sawhorse Dollar, and the overall series is tied 43-43-4.

The basketball hasn’t been droll—Dartmouth took out Princeton in Hanover last year and came five points from the feat in Jadwin the year before. Yet the two teams are looking at a long struggle to re-join the league’s upper echelon; on Friday, a (sawhorse) dollar might buy a ticket.

Pick: Princeton

COLUMBIA AT BROWN:

Dear reader, you know by now this column demands its writer scour the depths of Ivy League journalism, finding the bastions of irresponsibility and comedy that lie there. To quote a former teaching fellow of mine, it demands “fighting the balrogs so you don’t have to.”

It is with this proposition I present to you the Brown Daily Herald’s Drunk/Sober/High series. Exactly what it sounds like, the most recent review of Fifty Shades of Grey—for the uneducated, the book-turned-film is Twilight fan fiction with teenage Miley Cyrus try-hard erotic overtones—shows how low alcohol can take you.

The nadir? “Gmail is a highly underrated method of sexting.”

Oh Howard, I do worry about this generation.

Pick: Columbia

PENN AT HARVARD:

For the year, the Quakers are being outscored by 0.22 points per possession—the same margin as last year’s 1-13 Cornell team. Maybe that’s why Penn senior forward Greg Louis admitted this week in The Daily Pennsylvanian that he’d been asked by a group of eight-year-old girls how his team still tries with no hope of a league title.

I’m not sure what Louis told the precocious Girl Scouts, but I’d bet he didn’t mention the team has lost three of five by 25 points or more. Or that the losing got so bad a DP writer spent his Valentine’s Day tweeting moribund facts about the team’s historical pitifulness.

With Harvard having beaten Penn three straight times—and posting a plus-75 margin of victory in the process—a morose soliloquy from dear Steven Saturday almost seems inevitable.

Pick: Harvard

COLUMBIA AT YALE:

Much like last year, a Harvard-Yale showdown for all the marbles in the penultimate game of the year appears inevitable. Each team plays four of its last six at home, with no trips to Jadwin left on the schedule. In both cases, the Lions may have the best chance of the remaining teams at playing the spoiler.

Not only does Columbia play a high-variance strategy, but they have arguably the league’s third-best player in Maodo Lo. Before Chambers sent him sprawling on his game-winner Friday, Lo used a devastating crossover to put Crimson defender after Crimson defender on the floor. He was in total control—demonstrating proficiency at the rim, in the midrange, and beyond the arc. He had six threes in a narrow loss to Yale at Levien three weeks ago, and the team needs the same here to throw the race upside down.

Pick: Yale

CORNELL AT BROWN:

Both teams split a pair of contests last weekend, losing to one of the league’s upper echelon squads and crushing a bottom feeder the next night. Given that only the Gentleman’s C’s post a pair of consecutive challenging games, such a pattern isn’t unusual this year. In fact, teams handling the Harvard-Dartmouth, Brown-Yale, and Penn-Princeton duos have managed a split 61-percent of the time, with only three sweeps all year.

Pick: Cornell

PENN AT DARTMOUTH:

In what amounts to a suckerpunch to the hosts, Penn will play the game under the specter of potential legislation that could change campus forever. Yes, I am referring to the proposed Pennsylvania bill that could lower hard liquor prices across the state. In a wholly predictable series of events, a thirsty Dartmouth athletic department (25-25-1 since the announcement of the hard liquor ban) will welcome its hosts with commensurate jealousy and anger.

Pick: Dartmouth

PRINCETON AT HARVARD:

Two-and-a-half games out with five more to play, barring a road sweep of Yale and Harvard, the Tigers look to be fighting for a CIT bid. That’s not to say the Crimson will underestimate Mitch Henderson’s squad. Amaker admitted Wednesday the team adjusts more for Princeton’s offense than any other in the league, showcasing the on-ball pressure needed to deny Princeton’s quirky offense of backdoor cuts and three-point barrages.

Harvard begins a tough four-game stretch here against the rest of the league’s top five—anything less than 3-1, and it will be watching at home come NCAA Tournament time. If last weekend showed anything, however, it’s that this team embraces such moments.

Pick: Harvard

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.