Fighting Back

After nearly toppling Kansas, Harvard men’s basketball bests BU.

Corey Johnson ’19 (shown here against Kansas) sank six three-pointers in the BU game to lead the Crimson to a 75-69 victory.
Corey Johnson ’19 (shown here against Kansas) sank six three-pointers in the BU game to lead the Crimson to a 75-69 victory.
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletic Communications
Weisner Perez ’19 led Harvard with 15 points against Kansas and was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week.
Weisner Perez ’19 led Harvard with 15 points against Kansas and was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week. 
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletic Communications
 
The season had a rocky start, but after a win and a near-upset on the road, head coach Tommy Amaker hopes his team is starting to come together.
The season had a rocky start, but after a win and a near-upset on the road, head coach Tommy Amaker hopes his team is starting to come together.
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletic Communications

Last Saturday Anthony Martinucci, director of the recreation center in Berwyn, Illinois, was hosting its annual holiday party when his phone started “blowing up,” he said. Martinucci is also the head basketball coach at J. Sterling Morton West High School, and one of his former players, Weisner Perez ’19, was leading Harvard’s improbable second-half comeback at fourth-ranked Kansas. Martinucci and more than a dozen other partygoers crammed into his 10-by-10-foot office and flipped on his grainy television to watch Harvard and Perez try to pull off the biggest upset in program history.

It was a game that caught the eager, anxious attention of Harvard fans across the country.  Brad Hinshelwood ’09, J.D. ’14, Ph.D. ’15, a former sports chair for The Harvard Crimson, watched the game in his living room in Providence, Rhode Island. Thrilled to see the Crimson resurgence, he also felt a sudden pang of regret—he had turned down a ticket to the game. But  Neil Curran ’12, was there. One of a smattering of Crimson partisans at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas, Curran (whose wife, Liz Altmaier ’10, played for the women’s team), was beaming. Jayhawks fans around him had quietly laughed as he cheered Harvard’s first-half baskets. But by the time Perez tied the game at 56 with seven-and-a-half minutes left, the laughter had disappeared. Instead, Curran recalled, a silent tension filled the arena.

Alas, Kansas did just enough to send Harvard home with a loss (75-69), but the close game, paired with the Crimson’s 75-69 win over Boston University this past Tuesday, suggests that the team (now 3-6 on the season) may be starting to find its footing.

 

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Playing Offense “Weisly”

Stemberg head coach Tommy Amaker has repeatedly said that he wants his team to play inside-out. The approach seems straightforward. The team should start possessions by getting the ball close to the basket, either with a pass or dribble penetration. Then the player in the paint can shoot or pass to a teammate lurking on the perimeter or cutting to the basket.

But executing the offense is hard; it’s a mixture of regimentation and freedom. Early or late in the 30-second shot clock, Harvard runs set plays. Otherwise, the team runs a motion offense with general guidelines—get the ball inside, set screens, and move to open space—but no fixed pattern, which gives players the freedom to exploit opportunities. Thriving in this system requires a blend of intellect and instinct.

On Saturday, Perez—who led the team with 15 points and was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week—exhibited this balance. At six-foot-six and just over 200 pounds, he is what’s called a “stretch four”: a bit smaller than most power forwards but able to shoot from the outside, he can stretch defenses by luring taller defenders away from the basket. This versatility makes him a strong fit for an inside-out offense.

When he catches the ball in the post, Perez says, Amaker wants him to “turn and face” the basket, not back down a bigger defender. For certain plays on the perimeter, he can either shoot or drive to the basket. Against Kansas, he seemed to make all the right decisions: sinking jump shots (including a two-pointer deep in the corner); scoring acrobatic layups; and drawing fouls to get to the free throw line (where he made seven of eight attempts). Amaker lauded Perez for his “terrific instincts.”

If the entire team can find this same balance, the offense will start to flow, making the Crimson a hard team to defend.

Discovering Confidence

A strong performance in Kansas is a great way for an Ivy League team to bolster its confidence. In January 2010, the Cornell men traveled to Lawrence for a matchup with the then top-ranked Jayhawks. The Big Red led for nearly the entire game and held a one-point advantage with 50 seconds left, before falling 71-66. Jon Jaques, a starter on that team and now a Cornell assistant coach, explained that that experience helped give the players the poise to close out some tough road games en route to its third consecutive conference championship: “Just knowing we had ‘been there,’ in a hostile environment that we weren’t supposed to do well in, makes you feel more comfortable when the time comes to get a big defensive stop” on an Ivy court.

That Cornell team had nine seniors on the roster and reached the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16. This year’s Crimson team has just three seniors (one of whom, Patrick Steeves, was injured and did not play during his first three years in Cambridge) and starts two freshmen. Nonetheless, Harvard’s success in Lawrence seems to have had an effect. “Kansas helped because we came together as a team and fought back,” said freshman guard Corey Johnson, who sank six three-pointers in the subsequent game against BU. “We realized, ‘Wow we’re a really great team when we play together.’”

Improving Defense

Amaker has long maintained that he wants defense to be his program’s calling card, but this year it’s been inconsistent. The Crimson has held weaker teams (MIT and Bryant) to 45 points or fewer in a full game, but stronger opponents (BU, BC, and Northeastern) have scored 45 or more points in a half. It’s true that good teams score, but the Crimson’s defense is also part of the story. Harvard typically employs a man-to-man defense and occasionally switches to a match-up zone, which combines elements of man-to-man and zone defense (where each defender is responsible for guarding a portion of the court, rather than a member of the opposing team).

Against BU on Tuesday night, the Crimson had very specific instructions for guarding the Terriers’ top shooter, John Papale. They were supposed to track him while playing zone and not leave him to help a teammate in man-to-man. For most of the game, the strategy worked: with just under two-and-a-half minutes remaining and the Crimson up by nine, Papale had not scored.

Then two defensive lapses nearly cost Harvard the game. The first came with the Crimson in the matchup zone. The ball was near the top of the key, and senior Evan Cummins was at the edge of the paint, to the right of the basket. Cummins failed to realize that Papale was standing in the right corner. BU’s sharpshooter launched a three before Cummins’s outstretched arm could reach him. Swish. Six-point game.

On the next possession, Amaker switched back to man-to-man. Now Johnson was marking Papale, who again was standing in the right corner. BU’s guard, Kyle Foreman, who had the ball at the top of the key, then drove to the hoop on the right side. The natural reaction for a perimeter defender is to provide help on the player bringing the ball to the basket, but that’s exactly what BU wanted. The Terriers drew Johnson away from Papale, who launched another three. Swish. Three-point game.

Johnson made up for his miscue by hitting a corner three on the next possession, giving the Crimson a 71-65 lead with just over 30 seconds left. Mistakes are understandable, and that they came from a senior and a freshman show how difficult it is to master the defense. Still, breakdowns like these can mean the difference between wins and losses—and ultimately a championship—in taut Ivy League games.

After a two-week break for final exams, the Crimson travel to Hawaii to participate in the Diamond Head Classic, a three-day tournament in late December featuring strong competition, such as seventh-ranked Oklahoma and Northern Iowa (which knocked off then-top-ranked North Carolina earlier this year). Then the month-long stretch before classes resume in late January offers an opportunity for the young team to focus, improve, and gel before entering the heart of conference play.

Tidbits

The Harvard women’s basketball lost on the road at Florida Gulf Coast University, 74-65, and at home against Eastern Michigan, 85-81. The setbacks dropped the Crimson to 4-5 on the season. The team—which will break for nearly three weeks before traveling to Fairfield on December 28—was again led by guard Kit Metoyer ’16, who scored 18 points against Eastern Michigan and tallied 11 against Florida Gulf Coast.

Read more articles by: David L. Tannenwald

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