Category: Harvard

Dartmouth Shocks Harvard With Second-Half Comeback

With 13 minutes left in Saturday’s game at Lavietes Pavilion, it seemed the Crimson would follow their usual path to victory. After a gritty, low-scoring first half, the hosts had exploded out of halftime to take a 14-point lead over Dartmouth. Surely the hosts would close out the game with suffocating defense, just as they had against Northeastern, against Boston University, and against the Big Green two weeks earlier.

This time, Dartmouth turned the tables. Over the next 10 minutes, the visitors reeled off an astounding 26-2 run, holding on for a 70-61 victory and the first upset of this Ivy League season.

According to Ken Pomeroy’s win probability calculator, Harvard had about a 98% chance to win when it led 43-29 in the second half. Several factors caused the Big Green’s comeback, their first victory over Harvard in six years:

Harvard’s energy lapsed at key points. Wesley Saunders had smothered leading scorer Alex Mitola throughout the first half, but when Malik Gill fell to the floor on a drive early in Dartmouth’s run, Saunders paused, perhaps expecting a traveling violation. A two-pass sequence found Mitola on the right wing, where he swished a three-pointer over Saunders’ late closeout. Later in the half, after a turnover in the paint, Gabas Maldunas beat all five Crimson players down the court for an uncontested, game-tying layup.

“They were playing harder,” Saunders said. “They were scrapping and fighting the whole game. We came out with a lot of energy to start the second half, but we couldn’t sustain it throughout.”

The Crimson’s lineup issues, a recurring theme this season, struck again. Harvard played the unproven Matt Brown and Chris Egi together midway through the half, then removed sharpshooter Corbin Miller with its offense sputtering, and finally finished the game with a four-guard lineup that has struggled this year. Even in the right situations, players came up short — Miller missed three open treys, and the team went 0-4 from the free-throw line during Dartmouth’s run.

“We’ve gone into offensive droughts, and that has hurt us,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “But we had opportunities to convert in transition … we had chances to finish around the rim. We didn’t do enough of what we needed to do.”

Most importantly, Dartmouth made the right adjustments. After coming off the bench and playing just nine minutes in the first half, Malik Gill was on the floor for the game’s final 16 minutes, giving the Big Green a spark on both ends.

Gill used his speed to disrupt Harvard’s defense: He notched a game-high six assists, and drove through a zone for a layup and one that fouled out Steve Moundou-Missi and gave Dartmouth the lead for good.  And he also used his notoriously quick hands: Twice tasked with defending Saunders in the post, the 5’9” guard poked the ball away both times, leading to run-outs for the Big Green.

Those plays were part of a larger Dartmouth strategy to mix up defensive looks, holding Harvard to 39% shooting and 18 turnovers. “If you let them run what they want to do on a consistent basis, it’s tough. They’re too talented and too well-coached,” Dartmouth coach Paul Cormier said. “But if we can sometimes have a little scatterbug like Malik, whose hands are always going … it’s a lot tougher.”

Dartmouth scored only 10 points in the first 12 minutes, thanks largely to Harvard’s fearsome interior defense. The Big Green made only one of their first nine shots from the post or restricted area; they finished the first half 4-14 there, but they started drawing fouls in the paint.

Dartmouth_shot_chart_Harvard_1H

However, the Big Green were perfect at the basket in their second-half run, getting clean looks in transition and from offensive rebounds. Meanwhile, they also heated up from outside, including two Miles Wright three-pointers that capped the 26-2 spurt.

Dartmouth_shot_chart_Harvard_2H

“We were able to get some turnovers and score off those turnovers,” Cormier said. “We didn’t have to run our offense all night against their very solid, five-on-five defense. They’re very tough to score on five-on-five, but tonight we were able to create some situations off our defense.”

Harvard isn’t panicking yet. Two games into a 14-game season is too early for that; besides, new Ivy favorite Yale nearly lost at home to shorthanded Brown at the same time as the Crimson went down. “We’re not discouraged. We know there’s still a lot of season to go,” Saunders said.

But there is no conference tournament in the Ivy League, and four of the last five champions have had two or fewer losses. That likely won’t happen this year; as Saturday’s results showed, there are no dominant teams, and the rest of the league has improved considerably. With four straight road games ahead, however — including trips to Princeton and Yale — the Crimson’s path to a fifth straight title looks much more difficult.

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Jan. 19

What Happened Last Week: Yale opened Ivy League play with an impressive 80-62 victory at Brown. Despite committing 23 turnovers and nearly throwing away a six-point lead in the final minute, Columbia edged Cornell 48-45 on the road. In non-league play, Penn beat Niagara and was competitive with No. 5 Villanova, while Harvard’s six-game win streak against Boston College ended in overtime.

Three Thoughts:

1. Yale looked a lot like last year’s team at Brown, relying heavily on offensive rebounding, free throws and Justin Sears. The junior saw several layups spin out and shot just 7-16 from the line, but he still finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds; meanwhile, the visitors earned 37 free throws and grabbed 15 offensive boards. The Bulldogs’ shooting is much improved this season (thanks largely to Javier Duren and Jack Montague, who combined for 34 points), so if they can get to the line and control the glass like they did last year, they will be very tough to beat.

2. The Lions had a great defensive gameplan against Cornell, and they needed every bit of it to escape Ithaca with a win. Columbia often brought four or five defenders into the paint to stop drives, daring the Big Red to beat them with ball movement. The hosts instead settled for off-balance jumpers, taking only 12 of their 52 shots at the rim (most of which were well contested). Cornell made four field goals in the first half and scored .71 points per possession, allowing Columbia to lead wire-to-wire despite an ugly offensive performance of its own (including zero points from a foul-plagued Maodo Lo). 

Columbia-Cornell in a nutshell. (Video via Ivy League Digital Network)
Columbia-Cornell in a nutshell. (Video via Ivy League Digital Network)

3. The Ivy League announced a national TV package last week. Five men’s basketball games (and one women’s game) will be shown on CBS Sports Network, and several others will be syndicated on American Sports Network, which produces games to air on local networks. With fewer games and shorter notice, this marks a downgrade from last year’s package on NBC Sports Network, but at this late stage, it’s much better than nothing. The CBSSN package features each team at least once, though both Harvard-Yale showdowns are notably absent (one is on ASN).

Weekly Awards:

Player of the Week: Javier Duren, Yale — Duren beat the Bears in many ways on Saturday. He used his speed to get into the lane, his strength to outmuscle Tavon Blackmon in the post, and his touch to hit a pair of three-pointers. The senior point guard finished with a game-high 19 points, 10 rebounds and three assists (plus several other passes that went unfinished at the rim).

Rookie of the Week: Antonio Woods, Penn — Against fifth-ranked Villanova, Woods came off the bench but led the Quakers in minutes, scoring 18 points on 7-12 shooting. His heroics helped the Quakers stay within one possession through 30 minutes.

The Week Ahead: Three sets of travel partners complete their home-and-home series, with Brown visiting Yale, Cornell visiting Columbia and Harvard visiting Dartmouth. (We will be covering all three games on Saturday.) Given that all three of this week’s home teams won their openers on the road, the favorites are clear, but crazy things can happen in these series.

Power Rankings:

  1. Harvard (1-0) — Ivy play may be approaching, but Tommy Amaker’s recruiting machine hasn’t stopped: 2016 power forward Chris Lewis, the nation’s #44 prospect per ESPN, committed to the Crimson Sunday.
  2. Yale (1-0) — Though Brown’s matchups often kept Sears away from the basket defensively in first half, he finished with five blocked shots. Sears is my midseason Defensive Player of the Year, followed by Steve Moundou-Missi and Wesley Saunders. (Edit: I forgot about Shonn Miller, who would be right with Sears for DPOY.)
  3. Columbia (1-0) — Kendall Jackson was a surprise hero for Columbia. After playing just 12 minutes in the Lions’ previous nine games, he spelled Maodo Lo for much of Saturday, banging two three-pointers and finishing with eight points.
  4. Cornell (0-1) — The Big Red’s defense continues to be an amazing story, now 87th nationally per KenPom after ranking 350th a year ago. But their offense is now 305th. Cornell has scored .75 points per possession or less in three of its last five D-I games; remarkably, they still nearly won two of those (an OT loss to Saint Peter’s and Saturday’s loss to Columbia).
  5. Princeton (1-0) — With the Tigers off for exam break, here’s a long-overdue spotlight on their women’s team, which is 17-0 and #19 in the AP poll. The Tigers have won four Ivy championships under head coach Courtney Banghart, but they’ve yet to win an NCAA tournament game. This year is their best chance yet: With convincing wins over good Michigan and Pitt squads, Princeton is ranked sixth nationally in the Sagarin ratings.
  6. Dartmouth (0-1) — After a close loss at Vermont, Dartmouth did what Michigan and Yale couldn’t: Beat NJIT. The Big Green have shot just 30% from three-point range over their last three games, however, which they’ll need to turn around to make noise in Ivy play.
  7. Brown (0-1) — The Bears played at home, committed only 11 turnovers, and were still blown out in their Ivy opener, thanks to Yale’s 1.16 points per possession. Brown’s defense is probably the biggest disappointment of the Ivy League this year.
  8. Penn (0-1) — Penn’s freshmen continue to impress this season. Woods stole the spotlight against Villanova, but Mike Auger scored eight points with a team-high nine rebounds, a few days after getting seven boards and two steals in 21 minutes at Niagara.

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Jan. 12

What Happened Last Week: Princeton and Harvard opened Ivy League play with victories over their travel partners (see more below). Columbia and Yale dropped non-conference games to Stony Brook and NJIT, respectively. Cornell and Princeton dispatched midweek foes at home, and Brown’s offense sputtered in a 1-1 week. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Jan. 12” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Jan. 5

What Happened Last Week: Yale nearly beat a second major-conference team, leading for almost the entire second half at Vanderbilt, but the Bulldogs surrendered a five-point lead in the final minute and fell in double overtime. Other Ivies lost by double digits against higher-level competition (Penn at La Salle, Princeton at Wake Forest, Brown at Rhode Island, Cornell at Syracuse), while Columbia fell to St. Francis Brooklyn. The conference finished the week 3-7, all in true road games. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Jan. 5” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 29

What Happened Last Week: The Ivy League went 0-4 against major-conference competition, headlined by Columbia’s competitive loss to UConn and Harvard’s 56-46 defeat at Arizona State. But the Ancient Eight took care of everyone else, going 5-1 in its other games; Ivies have now won 10 of their last 13 games against mid-major opponents. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 29” →

Better Than Ever, Wesley Saunders Leads Harvard’s Hot Start

Midway through the second half of Harvard’s game against Boston University last Monday, the Crimson were in trouble. The Terriers, who came in as double-digit underdogs, had just tied the game with a 10-2 run. Harvard’s offense stalled after a timeout as the shot clock ticked away. Handed a hot potato with a hand in his eyeballs, Wesley Saunders had no choice but to launch a flat-footed moonshot from 22 feet away. Continue reading “Better Than Ever, Wesley Saunders Leads Harvard’s Hot Start” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 15

What Happened Last Week: Nearly half of the Ivy League’s nine games came against major-conference foes, and most of those were interesting: Brown upset Providence, Columbia scared No. 1 Kentucky, Princeton did the same to California, and Yale lost at Florida. (More on those games below.) The Ancient Eight was 3-2 in its other games, including wins by Harvard, Penn and Dartmouth.

Three Four Thoughts:

1. Don’t be surprised if Providence wants a break from scheduling cross-town rival Brown. After the Bears won at home in 2012 and were tied in the final minute last season, they upset the Friars again on Monday, 77-67. This was the Brown team that many of us expected to challenge for top three in the Ivy League, combining balanced scoring (boosted by 10-for-23 three-point shooting) with strong all-around defense.

Brown battled Providence from the 9:15 local tip, exchanging runs to end the first half all square. After Providence went on a 6-0 run to tie the game again at 44-all midway through the second half, it felt like the Friars would continue pull away — but Cedric Kuakumensah and Leland King banged back-to-back threes, and Providence never led again. Steven Spieth was terrific down the stretch, scoring on pivotal drives and securing all his free throws. After avoiding turnovers (their chief flaw this season) for most of the game, the Bears made things interesting with late giveaways and silly fouls, but they held on.

For perspective: UConn was an eight-point favorite in its supposedly “embarrassing” loss to Yale. Providence was favored by twice that (15.5 points) against the struggling Bears.

2. Double-digit defeats don’t get much better than Columbia’s 56-46 loss at Kentucky on Wednesday. The Lions opened with an 11-0 run and led for the first 26 minutes, ultimately finishing with the closest score of Kentucky’s 11 opponents to date (including Kansas, Texas and North Carolina). The top-ranked Wildcats took over with a 19-5 run in the second half — rebounding all nine of their missed field goals in that nine-minute stretch — but not before getting a serious scare from the Lions, much as then-No. 2 Michigan State did last year.

Columbia naturally plays at a slow pace and shoots a lot of three-pointers, but Kyle Smith and the Lions took those tactics to the extreme with a textbook high-variance gameplan. Against the nation’s best shot-blockers, the visitors took more than half of their shots from behind the arc, making a higher percentage of threes (10-for-23) than layups (6-for-15). On defense, Columbia was aggressive with rotations and help defense, challenging the Wildcats to beat them with patience and extra passes. Above all, the Lions kept the pace to a Joe Scott-like crawl, minimizing Kentucky’s ability to pull away; the game clocked in at 51 possessions, five fewer than the next-slowest Ivy contest this year.

After the game, ESPN2 ran a two-minute segment on the Ivy League, including a graphic of “Notable Ivy Wins.” This isn’t your older cousin’s Ancient Eight.

3. Princeton used a similar formula on Saturday at Cal, making eight first-half threes en route to a 37-28 lead. But the Tigers’ outside shooting dried up after halftime, as they made just two of 11 triples thereafter. That drought contributed to a nine-minute scoreless streak, in which Cal took its first and only lead with a 13-0 run; more than half the hosts’ points in that stretch came off turnovers, as Princeton gave the ball away with overeager passes on backdoor cuts and post entries. A power-conference victory could have been a defining statement for the Tigers, on the heels of a loss to St. Peter’s; instead, they fell to 3-8, with clear potential but still few victories.

4. Nothing went right for Yale in its 85-47 loss at Florida on Monday. In a dramatic departure from their game at UConn, the Bulldogs failed to protect the rim and allowed a 50% offensive rebound rate; meanwhile, they shot just 34 percent from the floor. But on the Gators’ hottest shooting night of the season (10-for-19 from three), even a perfect game from Yale might not have been enough.

One Chart:

Ivy_League_shot_selection

Data via Hoop-Math.com

NCAA shot location data isn’t perfect — in particular, the distinction between “layup” and “jumper” is subjective and prone to bias — but it’s useful as a directional guide. Just as they did last year, Princeton and Columbia are taking nearly half of their shots from three-point range, along with very few two-point jumpers. Meanwhile, Harvard (45%) and Penn (42%) are the league leaders in shots at the rim. One-third of Brown and Dartmouth’s shots have been two-point jumpers, while Yale and Cornell are also near that mark.

Weekly Awards:

Player of the Week: Gabas Maldunas, Dartmouth — After playing his way back into shape from last year’s ACL injury, Maldunas appears to be back in form as Dartmouth’s go-to player. The senior posted double-doubles in both games this weekend, going for 13 points and 10 rebounds (plus five blocks) at UMass Lowell before adding 27 and 10 at Jacksonville State.

Rookie of the Week: Sam Jones, Penn — Jones became the latest Penn freshman to step up, knocking down five of six three-pointers en route to a game-high 19 points against Marist. After a slow opening game, Jones has made 14 of his last 25 treys, flashing a solid assist rate as well.

Looking Ahead: The schedule remains light, featuring only eight games as most Ivies finish exams. The headliner comes on Sunday, when Harvard visits 9-0 Virginia, which is ranked No. 6 in the AP poll and No. 3 in KenPom. The other top contenders face interesting mid-major tests, with Yale visiting Vermont and Columbia hosting Hofstra.

Power Rankings:

  1. Harvard — What would the Harvard narrative be like if one more shot had fallen against Holy Cross? The Crimson could be 8-0 and still nationally ranked heading into Sunday’s game at Virginia, which would be a much bigger deal on the national landscape. One shot would be a tiny change in Harvard’s 500-possession body of work, and yet it would have had enormous implications. (Side note: Harvard was particularly unlucky that Agunwa Okolie missed that game, one of the few times Harvard has needed to play four guards.)
  2. Yale — The Bulldogs’ upset last week inspired a final exam question in a UConn probability course, which just happened to be taught by a Yale alumnus. Hopefully, no basketball players took the class.
  3. Columbia — Cory Osetkowski had a few nice-looking possessions at Kentucky: He shot 3-for-4 with six rebounds and two assists against the nation’s most intimidating frontcourt, adding three assists.
  4. Cornell — The Big Red was idle this week, returning to action at Radford on Sunday. In the meantime, enjoy Cornell hockey fans trying to throw a 10-foot teddy bear onto the rink.
  5. Princeton — Of Princeton’s current rotation players, only Clay Wilson, a low-usage shooter off the bench, is a senior; starting forward Hans Brase is a junior, and the remainder are underclassmen. Even if the Tigers’ fortunes don’t turn around this year, they’ll be a factor in the league going forward.
  6. Brown — There may not be a Rhode Island college basketball tournament, but the Bears are doing their best to play one anyway, facing all three Ocean State foes this month. After beating Bryant and Providence, Brown can complete the sweep at Rhode Island on the 31st.
  7. Penn — The Quakers have won three straight games, but they probably can’t count on future opponents shooting 21%, as Marist did on Tuesday.
  8. Dartmouth — The Big Green’s last five games have come against teams ranked below 250 in KenPom, and they are 2-3 in that stretch. Maldunas had a strong week and Dartmouth looked good at UMass Lowell, but it’s been a rough start overall.

Three Thoughts: Harvard 70, Boston University 56

Though Boston University entered Lavietes Pavilion with a disappointing 2-5 record, the Terriers played Harvard even for nearly 30 minutes on Monday. Behind 13 points from Blaise Mbargorba and a balanced scoring effort, BU gave the hosts a scare, but the Crimson finally pulled away for a 70-56 victory on just 57 possessions, improving to 7-1. Three thoughts from the game (written during commercials of Brown’s upset over Providence):

1. The Terriers took Harvard out of its offense (for a while). Harvard entered Monday’s game taking nearly half its shots at the rim — making 61% of those attempts — while BU lacks a true shot-blocker and had allowed opponents to shoot 68% at the basket. So it was no surprise that the visitors packed in their defense, playing a tight zone and daring the Crimson to win the game from outside. Multiple Terriers collapsed on Saunders on every touch inside the arc, denying driving lanes and making entry passes to Harvard’s post players difficult.

“They want to throw it in [the post] a ton,” BU coach Joe Jones said. “Their depth is outrageous up front, so they’re able to use so many guys and wear you down. We just wanted to take that part of their game away as much as we could, and force them to do some things they didn’t want to do.”

In the first half, BU’s tactics worked well: After high-low action led to a few easy points inside, the Crimson’s offense turned into a three-point shooting contest, as 15 of their 25 first-half attempts were from distance. Corbin Miller made three NBA-range treys, but he finished the game just 3-for-13 beyond the arc, and Harvard as a whole shot 31% from three. The Crimson got back to their roots in the second half, however, working their way inside and making 16 of 17 free throws in the period. “Defensively, we got some stops, which allowed us to get out and sometimes beat the zone down,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said.

2. Boston U. matched up well with Harvard in other ways. The Terriers’ offense usually features four perimeter scorers, which poses problems for the Crimson’s standard two-big lineup; after Nathan Dieudonne and Eric Fanning took advantage of mismatches to score in the first half, the hosts switched to a four-guard alignment for the majority of the game. Harvard struggled with those lineups against Holy Cross earlier this season, but they were +14 when playing small on Monday, the entire margin of victory. “They’re a dangerous three-point shooting team, so we thought it’d be beneficial for us to chase them a little bit better with a smaller lineup,” Amaker said.

3. Harvard was simply better down the stretch. With less than 11 minutes remaining and the game tied, BU’s defense stymied the Crimson for 34 seconds, leaving the ball in Saunders’ hands beyond the arc as the shot clock ticked down. John Papale’s hand was at his eyeballs, but Saunders had no choice but to launch a high-arcing prayer — which dropped cleanly through the net. The Terriers threw away a baseline inbounds pass shortly after, and they went without a field goal for seven minutes as Harvard pulled away; Siyani Chambers eventually shut the door with a speedy and-one drive and a step-back jumper.

“Our issues are that we don’t execute at a high enough level, and we don’t always play with enough toughness to win games like this. We have to change that,” Jones said. “We’ve got a long way to go before we become the team we’re capable of becoming.”