Tag: Harvard

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.”

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 8

What Happened Last Week: December in the Ivy League doesn’t get much more eventful than this. Yale upset Connecticut for the league’s biggest regular-season win in a couple years; Harvard survived double overtime at Vermont despite a scoring controversy (more below); and the conference was a perfect 8-0 over the weekend. That offset a much gloomier beginning, in which Columbia, Dartmouth and Princeton lost to foes ranked outside KenPom’s top 300. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 8” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 1

What Happened Last Week: Harvard earned the Ivy League’s biggest win so far this season, edging UMass in a 75-73 thriller. Yale fell short at Providence, but it won two other games to move to 6-2. Columbia and Penn extended streaks in opposite directions, while Princeton and Brown had mixed results in Thanksgiving weekend multi-team events. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Dec. 1” →

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Nov. 24

What Happened Last Week: The top of the league held its own, as Yale, Columbia and Harvard went a combined 7-0. Cornell continued to exceed expectations, beating Colgate and taking Penn State and Drexel to the wire. But that was the extent of the good Ivy news, as the other four teams fell to a combined 0-11 since Opening Day.

Three thoughts:

  1. We’re still only 10 days into the 2014-15 season, but the Ivy League picture is starting to look a little bit clearer. As expected, Yale is Harvard’s top challenger, having swept three games in convincing fashion this weekend. Despite personnel losses, Columbia could be a third contender, with strong showings at Stony Brook and Lehigh. Princeton was originally expected to be in the hunt, but depth issues have marred the Tigers’ outlook considerably. Neither Brown nor Dartmouth has been inspiring thus far, but there is one other dark horse…
  2. From 2003-04 to 2012-13, there were 22 D-I teams that won two or fewer games over a full season; just three of those 22 were above .500 in the following year (Jacksonville in 2006, Bryant and Towson in 2012). The Big Red stands at 2-4 now, but they led Penn State most of the way before a final-second giveaway, and they saw another lead disappear the next day against Drexel. With several winnable non-conference games coming up, Cornell may threaten the .500 mark this season — and with lingering questions elsewhere in the Ivy League, the Big Red is now a real contender for a top-half finish.
  3. Most people may associate Thanksgiving with football, but this week is a great time for Ivy fans to see their teams on national broadcasts. Brown’s visit to Illinois tonight will be shown on ESPN3, as will Penn’s game against Temple tomorrow. All three of Princeton’s games at the Wooden Legacy tournament will be on the Worldwide Leader’s networks, starting with a Thursday afternoon tilt against UTEP on ESPNU. Yale faces Providence Friday on Fox Sports 1, followed by Harvard-UMass on ESPN3 the following day.

One chart:

Ivy_League_scoring_distribution_by_team

The graph above shows the scoring distribution for all eight Ivy League teams so far this season, roughly arranged from the deepest to the shallowest. Wesley Saunders has scored 29% of Harvard’s points, more than any Ivy player except Brown’s Leland King (30%), but the rest of the Crimson’s roster is quite balanced, with seven other players each contributing at least 8% of its scoring. Columbia and Dartmouth are also rather deep, while Cornell, Yale and Brown have relied heavily on their top four, but no team has been shallower than Princeton — just seven players have accounted for all but one of the Tigers’ points.

Weekly Awards:

Player of the Week: Justin Sears, Yale — Sears was his usual stat-stuffing self this week, racking up 45 points, 26 rebounds, 11 assists, and eight blocks in three D-I games, all Yale wins. Other players will certainly have their say, but the Sears-Wesley Saunders battle for Ivy Player of the Year might be almost as entertaining as their teams’ fight for the championship.

Rookie of the Week: Mike Auger, Penn — Auger gave the Quakers a huge spark off the bench in each game this week; he had 10 points and eight rebounds against Rider, followed by 18 points and nine rebounds in just 14 minutes against Lafayette. Nearly half of his rebounds came on the offensive end, and he was efficient in his scoring, making 12 of 17 shots in all.

The week ahead: A trip to 5-0 Providence will give Yale a great quality-win opportunity on Friday, but the Bulldogs’ game against Lafayette two days earlier might be just as interesting, featuring a juicy frontcourt battle between Sears and the Leopards’ duo of Seth Hinrichs and Dan Trist. Harvard will be tested this week, possibly by Houston and certainly by UMass on Saturday. Princeton will play three games in four days against good teams on the West Coast, which may force the Tigers to hunt deeper into their bench.

Power Rankings:

  1. Harvard — I swear, I predicted before the season that Harvard would start a Fraschilla-Chatfield-Okolie-Edosomwan-Anastasi lineup at least once this year, but WordPress swallowed that draft. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
  2. Yale — Forward Matt Townsend had a pretty good weekend, scoring 12 points on perfect shooting to help the Bulldogs beat Kent State. Oh, and he was also named a Rhodes Scholar on Saturday.
  3. Columbia — If you find yourself in a three-day-long turkey coma this week, Saturday’s American-Columbia game should be the right tempo for you. American is the slowest-paced team so far this season, while the Lions are the fourth-slowest; Ken Pomeroy’s projected score is a blistering 49-45.
  4. Brown — Leland King put up big scoring numbers this week — 17 points against Northwestern, 25 against Holy Cross, 25 more against Indiana State — but he did so with even bigger usage numbers, launching 49 shots and committing 13 turnovers across three games. King has taken more than 40 percent of Brown’s shots while on the floor, per kenpom.com, which is a major asset for a Brown team that lacks other natural scorers; at that usage, however, even a slight uptick from his current offensive rating of 94 would have an outsized impact.
  5. Cornell — The Big Red can credit their defense for both victories so far, but this isn’t their high-pressure system of 3-4 years ago; Cornell has forced turnovers on just 15% of possessions. Instead, they have limited opponents’ shooting percentage, in large part due to David Onuorah and Shonn Miller’s blocked shots.
  6. Princeton — For years, Princeton has had an outsized home-court advantage at Jadwin Gymnasium — so it was shocking to see the Tigers lose at home to Incarnate Word, which was in Division II just 18 months ago. The Cardinals are much better than most teams who have jumped divisions (they went 9-5 in the Southland last year), but that’s damning with the faintest of praise.
  7. Dartmouth — Through two games this season, the Big Green have committed 38 turnovers while forcing 17. Dartmouth’s offense shot accurately enough against Hartford, including Gabas Maldunas’ 5-for-5 performance, but they just couldn’t get enough shots.
  8. Penn — The Quakers’ performance against Lafayette was encouraging, even in an 83-77 loss. The Leopards’ offense is lethal in any circumstance, especially when shooting 9-for-16 on threes, but Penn scored nearly enough to keep up. Tony Hicks dropped 13 assists against two turnovers, something he can show those who doubt he can be a True Point GuardTM (as long as he omits the part about taking 18 shots).

Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Nov. 17

What Happened Last Week: What could have been a strong weekend for the Ivy League became a disappointing start to the season, thanks to several close games breaking against the Ancient Eight. Yale lost to Quinnipiac in double overtime, Columbia blew a late lead to lose to Stony Brook by one point, and Penn fell to Delaware State in overtime. After Princeton and Cornell dropped single-digit decisions Sunday, nationally ranked Harvard was upset by Holy Cross, 58-57. The Ivy League went just 4-7 overall, with Cornell(!) providing the most notable win. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Nov. 17” →

Behind Aggressive Defense, Holy Cross Shocks No. 25 Harvard

Entering their season opener against No. 25 Harvard, the Holy Cross Crusaders knew they couldn’t play cautiously. In the final game of the Coaches vs. Cancer tripleheader at TD Garden, the Crusaders came out with aggressive full-court pressure and kept it up throughout the evening. Forty minutes later, they were rewarded with 24 forced turnovers and a 58-57 upset — their first victory over a nationally ranked team since 1977. Continue reading “Behind Aggressive Defense, Holy Cross Shocks No. 25 Harvard” →