Setup for a Comeback?

Harvard men’s basketball loses two straight games.

Against Boston College, Zena Edosomwan ’17 notched nine rebounds and 20 points, including this monstrous dunk.
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletics Communications
Agunwa Okolie ’16, Harvard’s best perimeter defender, got into the lane against Boston College to make an impact on the offense as well.
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletics Communications
Stemberg head coach Tommy Amaker is trying to guide freshman point guard Tommy McCarthy and the rest of the Crimson through a difficult season start.
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletics Communications

Tommy Amaker, the Stemberg head coach of men’s basketball, usually delivers leadership lessons on the sideline. But on Sunday, November 15, one day after his team’s loss to Providence, he ventured across the river to address students in the Harvard Kennedy School’s executive education program, “Leadership Decision Making: Optimizing Organizational Performance.”

He highlighted the importance of perseverance. According to Errol Toulon Jr., a student in the program and the deputy commissioner of operations at New York City’s department of corrections, Amaker described being fired from the University of Michigan, mentioned his team’s setback at Providence, and shared a memorable coaching adage: “A setback is a setup for a comeback.”

After suffering back-to-back losses to UMass and Boston College this week, Amaker needs to impress the same point on his players. Harvard has already played some extremely talented teams, but with a 1-3 record, the Crimson needs to make offensive and defensive adjustments—and recognize these early setbacks as a learning opportunity—if it is to contend for a sixth consecutive conference championship.

 Okolie’s Offense

When the players took the floor against Massachusetts on Tuesday, the fans at Lavietes Pavilion burst into applause—for the Minutemen. The sold-out crowd, heavily weighted toward UMass, was even more boisterous in the second half, when the visiting team went on a 17-6 run to stretch a 38-34 halftime lead to 55-40 with 11:30 remaining.

The next nine minutes proved the Crimson’s most impressive stretch this year: Harvard went on a 19-6 run to slice the deficit to two, effectively implementing Amaker’s inside-out offensive strategy: getting the ball inside, either through a pass to a post player or dribble penetration. The player on the interior then has two options: shooting, or passing the ball to an open three-point shooter.

There’s no doubt that Harvard has a strong center: Zena Edosomwan ’17 is averaging 14.3 points and 11.5 rebounds a game. And despite shooting 5-27 from three-point range against UMass, the team also has talented snipers in Corey Johnson ’19, Tommy McCarthy ’19, and Corbin Miller ’15 (’17). But what had been missing is a player who can drive into the paint and finish or draw the defense and dish the ball to an open teammate. In the comeback against UMass, senior Agunwa Okolie played that role. He began the run by getting into the lane on back-to-back possessions (first by dribbling and then by cutting) and passing the ball to Miller and Andre Chatfield ’18 for threes. Then an Okolie jumper made it a seven-point game. He followed that up with a pair of assists and a layup to bring the team to within two.

Harvard ultimately lost the game 69-63 (a miscommunication between McCarthy and Edosomwan led to a turnover that sealed Harvard’s fate), but it learned a valuable lesson about Okolie’s potential. As Amaker said after the Crimson’s subsequent matchup with BC, Okolie’s “calling card” is defense (he routinely guards the opposing team’s best perimeter player), but in scoring or assisting on six Harvard baskets during the UMass comeback, the senior proved that he can make a major contribution on offense, too.

A Decimated Defense

Harvard had four days off before traveling to BC for a Sunday matinee against the Eagles. The team seemed rusty at first, failing to score for the first five minutes and posting just 20 points in the first half. Fortunately for the Crimson, the Eagles were worse, and Harvard went into halftime up by four. But BC played significantly better after halftime, sinking seven three-pointers and scoring 53 points en route to a 69-56 victory.

Although Harvard lost a winnable game, there were several positives. First, Edosomwan was a force, notching 20 points (a career high) and nine rebounds. Eagles head coach Jim Christian, who noted that Edosomwan played just three minutes in last year’s matchup, called him “the most improved player in the country.” In addition, the Crimson made seven of 13 three-point attempts. The building blocks of a good offense are intact.

But troubling signs remain. The Crimson made just nine of 23 foul shots; the main culprits were Edosomwan and sophomore Chris Egi, who together missed 10 free throws. BC’s strategy was to stay close to Harvard’s three-point shooters and not double-team Harvard’s post players; this forced Edosomwan and Egi to beat the Eagles one-on-one or at the foul line. If other teams replicate this strategy and Harvard’s post players do not improve their free-throw shooting, the offense could stall.

Another looming concern is defense. After playing very strong defense in the opening 20 minutes, the Crimson gave up those 53 points in the second half. To some extent, this was the result of a talented opponent (BC plays in the high-powered Atlantic Coast Conference) coming alive and starting to hit shots. Amaker has always emphasized aggressive man-to-man defense, but thus far this year, he has been willing to use zone defense; the team’s second-half performance may point to the need to give more playing time to Andre Chatfield ’18, an athletic wing and skilled perimeter defender who is averaging just 9.5 minutes per game.

Finally, Harvard needs more stability at point guard. Against UMass and BC, McCarthy had 10 turnovers and just one assist. Growing pains are par for the course for a freshman up against stiff competition—and with 13 points against the Eagles, he contributed substantially. But if he is to quarterback the team successfully, he needs to decrease giveaways and put his teammates in position to score.

 A Tipping Point

At 1-3, the Crimson is off to the worst start of the Amaker era. But in Providence, UMass, and BC, the Crimson has faced—and remained competitive with—three teams from higher-profile conferences. And Harvard made demonstrable progress in each of those contests.

During the next 10 days, Harvard faces three teams that have traditionally been less competitive (Bryant, Holy Cross, and Northeastern). The schedule thus grants the Crimson the opportunity to start translating its incremental improvement into wins. The team, in Amaker’s adage, is set up for a comeback.

Tidbits

  • Junior point guard Matt Fraschilla is out for the season after tearing his ACL against Providence. Already without star point guard Siyani Chambers ’16 (’17), who tore his ACL during the offseason, the Crimson now have only two players on the roster—McCarthy and Corbin Miller ’15 (’17)—with experience at the point.
  • On Friday afternoon, Crimson players past and present gathered at BC’s Conte Forum for a ceremony celebrating the late Tom Stemberg ’71, M.B.A. ’73, a longtime Harvard basketball supporter. Amaker, whose coaching position Stemberg endowed last season, spoke at the ceremony.
  • After winning two of three games, the Harvard women’s basketball team is 2-2 on the season. Co-captain AnnMarie Healy ’16 and Shilpa Tummala ’16 are leading the way, averaging 15.3 and 14.7 points per game, respectively. The Crimson has also received strong performances from a trio of freshmen—Madeline Raster, Nani Redford, and Sydney Skinner—all of whom have seen substantial time in the backcourt. Head coach Kathy Delaney Smith’s squad will look to push its record above .500 when it plays Boston University on Tuesday.
Read more articles by: David L. Tannenwald

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