Two Tests Passed

Harvard men’s basketball team defeats Houston and UMass.

Senior Wesley Saunders (shown here, driving to the basket) led Harvard to victory with a game-high 27 points.
Senior Kenyatta Smith anchored the Harvard front court, with 11 points in his highest scoring output of the season.
Sophomore power forward Zena Edosomwan has emerged as a key contributor coming off the bench this year, averaging 5.8 points in just under 11 minutes of action per contest.
Senior power forward Steve Moundou-Missi recorded 14 points and a career-high 14 rebounds to help Harvard top Houston.

Harvard Hardwood, the Harvard Magazine basketball report

 

Heading into Saturday’s home game against the University of Massachusetts, the Harvard men’s basketball team had won 52 of the last 55 contests it had hosted at Lavietes Pavilion. During many of those victories, the Crimson was buoyed by a boisterous student section and large swath of supportive alumni. But with most students away for Thanksgiving break and with a vocal contingent of UMass alumni in attendance, the Crimson faced an unusual environment during the sold-out matinee: chants of “U-Mass” echoed through the arena, as most of the crowd cheered against the home team.

The result nonetheless was familiar: thanks to 27 points from senior Wesley Saunders, the Crimson earned a come-from-behind-victory over the Minutemen, 75-73. Paired with Harvard’s 84-63 thrashing of Houston earlier in the week, the victory pushed the team’s record to 4-1 for the season. And the way the Crimson played—and the players who excelled—helped answer some of the questions surrounding the squad following its loss to Holy Cross in the second game of the season.

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Early in Saturday’s game, it looked like the vocal UMass supporters and their high-powered team—which arrived at Lavietes with a 5-1 record—might best the Crimson. After senior forward Steve Moundou-Missi opened the scoring for Harvard with a baseline jumper, UMass forward Maxie Esho threw down a powerful dunk (one of three he had that day) to tie the score and help catapult UMass to an 18-12 lead. When the Minutemen hit a three-pointer at the buzzer, Harvard went into intermission trailing 38-32; and at the start of the second half, things appeared to be getting out of hand, as UMass took a 45-36 lead.

Then Saunders changed the game’s momentum. In just over 75 seconds, the guard assisted on a three-pointer by Corbin Miller ’15 (’17) to reduce the UMass margin to six. Then Saunders rebounded the basketball and laid it in. Four-point game. Next, he stole the ball, setting the stage for a dunk by Evan Cummins ’16 that cut the deficit to two and forced the Minutemen to call timeout. From there, Saunders tied the game at 45 with a lay-up.

Yet Saunders, who is averaging 21.8 points per game, saved his best play for last. With just over 40 seconds remaining and the score tied at 71, he took the ball at the top of the key, drove, switched directions by putting the ball behind his back, and then hung in the air and drew contact to score a basket and draw a foul. The free throw made the score 74-71 and ensured the Crimson victory. Afterward, he called the play a “perfect ending for [a] game like that.”

Saunders also emphasized that the contest was a “good win for [the team’s] confidence”—in part because they had defeated an excellent opponent: UMass was a six seed in last year’s NCAA tournament and entered Saturday’s matchup on a high note after blowing out Northeastern 75-54 earlier in the week. Equally important was the Crimson’s performance against the Minutemen’s full-court press: the same tactic that Holy Cross had used in its upset of Harvard. Against the Crusaders’ press, the Crimson committed 24 turnovers, but against the Minutemen, Harvard gave the ball away only eight times. Moreover, the Crimson beat the press with a normal lineup. Against Holy Cross, Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker often played four guards to ensure that the team had its best ball-handlers on the floor. But against UMass, he remained committed to the team’s preferred strategy of having multiple post players—and the big men delivered: senior center Kenyatta Smith tallied 11 points, seven rebounds, and three blocks in 26 minutes of action, and Zena Edosomwan ’17 scored eight points in a spirited performance off the bench that Amaker described as “a big shot in the arm” for the Crimson.

For Harvard, the increased assurance comes at a pivotal juncture. Before breaking for final exams on December 9, the team faces three challenging matchups: a home game against Northeastern, a favorite to win its league championship; a road contest against Vermont, one of only three teams to defeat Harvard at Lavietes in the past three years; and a home matchup against Boston University, which trailed Kentucky (the number-one team in the country) by only five points at halftime earlier this season.

But for now, the Crimson can take solace in the fact that they won what Amaker described as a “terrific, terrific college basketball game” against the “best team” they’ve played so far this year. And it’s all the more rewarding given that it occurred in a familiar setting, albeit with an unconventional crowd.   

 

Tidbits: The team is still working to determine its regular rotation, in part because of injuries to several players. Jonah Travis ’15 (a starter in the team’s first two games) was in street clothes for the third consecutive contest on Saturday, and Agunwa Okolie ’16 started his third consecutive game, but did not play in the second half for the second time in that stretch after sustaining an injury.

Three-point plays: Senior co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi played only 17 minutes after picking up three fouls in the first half and a fourth foul early in the second half. While on the court, the Cameroonian power forward tallied merely four points, but both were mid- to long-range jump shots. The senior’s marksmanship—paired with improved three-point shooting on Saturday from Saunders, Miller, and Chambers—demonstrated that even though this squad is unlikely to replace the outstanding three-point shooting of Laurent Rivard ’14, the Crimson have several players who are capable of stretching opponents’ defenses.

The women, on the road: The men’s team has played the bulk of its games in the comfortable confines of Lavietes Pavilion, but the women’s team (3-3) has just completed a four-game stretch—competing in the Basketball Hall of Fame Tournament—that began with three games in South Bend, Indiana, and concluded in Connecticut on Sunday with a matchup against Temple. The Crimson won two of three contests in Indiana, knocking off Quinnipiac 87-83 and besting Holy Cross 79-76 after senior co-captain Erin McDonnell hit a game-winning three-pointer in overtime. But the team lost to host Notre Dame, the third-ranked team in the country, 97-43. In their matchup against Temple, the Crimson fell 81-69 despite senior Temi Fagbenle’s 23 points and school-record 24 rebounds.

David L. Tannenwald ’08 is a Cambridge-based writer focused on the intersection of sports and society. In March 2014, he profiled Harvard men’s basketball coach Tommy Amaker for SB Nation. He has also written about Ivy League sports for Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and works as a research associate at Harvard Business School.

Read more articles by: David L. Tannenwald

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