Yale’s Veterans Help Them Survive Brown, Move To Top Of Ivy

There was good, bad, and plenty of ugly for Yale Saturday afternoon against Brown, as the Bulldogs looked alternately confused and frustrated as a double-digit favorite against a Bears team it had run off its home court a week before.

Brown didn’t even have its leading scorer and biggest offensive threat in Leland King, either, and yet somehow Yale found itself down six at the half, and when Javier Duren missed a wide open breakaway dunk that allowed Tavon Blackmon to score seconds later, Brown looked like they may steal it.

Continue reading “Yale’s Veterans Help Them Survive Brown, Move To Top Of Ivy” →

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.

With Zaid Hearst Leading The Way, Here Comes Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac senior Zaid Hearst goes for a layup against Manhattan

For all intents and purposes, the game was over. Quinnipiac led by double digits and time was not only a factor, it precluded a Manhattan comeback with only 90 seconds left.

But as Manhattan sharpshooter Shane Richards ran off screens, Zaid Hearst was still with him every step of the way, just as he had been for the first 38 minutes of the game. Richards finally got one last good look when Hearst decided to switch with James Ford, but it rimmed out and Richards – who had scored 22, 21, and 21 in his last three games – put up a goose egg as Quinnipiac climbed back to .500 in the MAAC with an impressive 73-59 national television victory at the TD Bank Center Friday night.

Continue reading “With Zaid Hearst Leading The Way, Here Comes Quinnipiac” →

Three Thoughts: Albany 62, Hartford 53

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and Albany just may be the team to beat in America East with or without Peter Hooley.

For the second time in four days, the Great Danes went on the road against a team picked above them in the preseason conference coaches’ poll and systematically took them apart, this time a 62-53 win over Hartford Thursday night at Chase Family Arena, in which the host Hawks (11-8, 4-2) led only once and that was 3-2.

Continue reading “Three Thoughts: Albany 62, Hartford 53” →

Northeastern Torches James Madison, Takes Sole CAA Lead

Northeastern fans dressed in a "white-out" for Wednesday's 82-59 win over James Madison.
Northeastern fans dressed in a “white-out” for Wednesday’s 82-59 win over James Madison.

Northeastern marketed Wednesday night’s game as a “white-out” for fans, and Huskies players got in on that theme with white-hot offense. Behind a blistering 1.34 points per possession, the hosts routed James Madison 82-59, taking the solo CAA lead at 6-1.

“When you’re shooting the ball well, everything looks good,” Northeastern coach Bill Coen said. “We shot the ball well to start the game, but sustained a level of teamwork and intensity throughout the game, which was probably our best overall effort so far this season.”

After missing its first two shots, Northeastern reeled off an eight-minute, 25-6 explosion that featured 10 baskets from eight different Huskies. By the time reserve center Kwesi Abakha capped the run with a layup and one, the hosts held a commanding lead that never dipped below double digits.

Though it entered Wednesday with the best per-possession defense in CAA play, James Madison was helpless to stop Northeastern in the first half. The Huskies hit eight of 13 three-pointers, committed only two turnovers, and scored 49 points on 31 possessions before halftime. Point guard T.J. Williams finished with a team-high 17 points, while David Walker added 15.

As is their custom, the Huskies picked James Madison apart with crisp ball movement. They tossed skip passes through the Dukes’ zone to cutters and spot-up shooters, assisting on 14 of their 18 baskets in the first half. Northeastern’s offense often ran through star forward Scott Eatherton on the left block or baseline; though he finished with six points, tying a season low, the senior dished out a career-best seven assists.

“What makes this team really solid and difficult to beat is their passing ability, especially from their forwards,” JMU coach Matt Brady said. “Their fours and fives are outstanding passers.”

Ron Curry gave the visitors 21 points on 12 shots, hitting all five three-point attempts (including a heat-check bomb from 26 feet). But his teammates combined to shoot 32 percent, and James Madison was 8-15 from the line. In their third game without dismissed guard Andre Nation, the Dukes still scored about a point per possession — not far off their season mark — but they were failed by their defense.

Three other thoughts from Matthews Arena:

1. Are the Dukes for real? A James Madison win would have forced a five-way tie atop the CAA at 5-2; instead, the visitors sit in fifth place, two games behind Northeastern. They are 4-0 against the bottom half of the league, but 0-3 against the top tier. While each of the top four (Northeastern, Hofstra, William & Mary, UNC Wilmington) has beaten a fellow member, the Dukes haven’t yet proven they are at the same level. They’ll get two more chances soon, facing the Pride and the Tribe before month’s end.

2. Reggie Spencer is back. After missing the last three games with a lower-body injury, Spencer returned with a vengeance Thursday. The 6-7 forward showed his usual touch with a pair of mid-range jumpers, but he also attacked the rim. On his first touch of the game, Spencer caught a pass in the middle of James Madison’s zone, took a hard dribble through the lane and made an easy layup.

Spencer finished with 13 points on 5-6 shooting. “After the injury, I learned you never know when it’s going to end, so have fun and take advantage every time you step on the court. That’s what I tried to do,” the senior said, adding that he felt close to 100%.

3. The CAA picture will clear up this week. William & Mary is in the mix at 5-2, but the Tribe have played just one other top-four team and own puzzling losses at Elon and Delaware. They can cement their status as a top Colonial contender this week, with home games against Northeastern Saturday and Hofstra Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Huskies will face four straight bottom-division teams after visiting William & Mary this weekend. If they escape Williamsburg with a win, they could hold first place for a long time — at least until a brutal seven-day stretch of Hofstra-UNCW-William & Mary, the former two on the road.