W.B-Ball Streaking Towards Postseason

Entering the weekend, Saturday night's women's basketball matchup between first-place Harvard (19-6, 13-0 Ivy) and second-place Brown (15-11, 10-4) at Lavietes Pavilion was billed as a matchup of the best the Ivy League had to offer. What it turned into was a tune-up for Harvard in preparation for its NCAA Tournament appearance.

The Crimson started off fast, finished with authority and blew out the Bears in between, winning by a score of 104-73. Co-captain Kelly Black led all scorers with a career high 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting, and junior Allison Feaster added 26 to go with 12 rebounds.

Harvard opened the game on fire. The team's first scoring came when co-captain Jessica Gelman sliced seemingly effortlessly through the defense and bounced a pass to Black for an easy lay-up under the hoop.

Indeed, much of Black's scoring came after receiving crisp entry passes from teammates, particularly Gelman, who racked up 10 assists. Brown's guard-oriented, open-floor style of play--on both ends of the court--made it easy for Gelman to penetrate and pass the ball off to Black and Feaster under the basket.

"We passed into [Black] very well tonight," Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. "We try to do that all the time."

"I just think our team is awesome," Black said. "They gave me good passes and I had easy lay-ups."

Just five minutes into the game, Harvard had already opened up a 17-4 advantage, forcing Brown to use its second time-out. The Crimson was thriving on offense and its defense had successfully kept the ball out of the hands of Brown's twin threats, sophomore guard Vita Redding and junior guard Liz Turner.

The Bears tried to change that after the timeout. Immediately after play resumed, Redding took the ball upcourt and tried to beat Gelman and create her own shot in the lane. She travelled.

Redding--who leads the Ivies in scoring--was stymied all game, finishing with a relatively-low 17 points on just 7-of-19 shooting. If Saturday's game was to decide who of Feaster and Redding was to be Ivy Player of the Year, as many speculated, then it does not bode well for the Brown sophomore.

"Honestly, that comparison kind of offends me," Gelman said. "She scores a lot, but that's all she does. [Feaster] is a complete player."

Brown's big weapon all game was not Redding, but Turner. The junior poured in 12 points in the first half, all of which came after that second time-out.

Turner was thriving off Harvard's ineffective zone defense, so much so that the Crimson entered halftime with just a 15-point lead, 50-35, despite jumping out to the fast start.

But in the second, it was all business. Harvard blew out of the box in the second half, opening the frame with a 24-10 run before Brown tried to stop the carnage with a time-out.

Harvard's offensive surge was led by Feaster--who in one span scored six points in 28 seconds--and junior Alison Seanor, who seemed to spark the Crimson with two driving layups and a steal at the start of the half.

After the Harvard run, it was obvious to both teams that the rest of the game was academic. The only remaining question was whether the Crimson would score 100 points.

When Harvard passed the century mark on a three-pointer by freshman Laela Sturdy in the waning minutes, the crowd went wild, the bench erupted in celebration, and any question as to which team should represent the Ivy League in the national spotlight was erased.

"We knew we had to dominate both this game and Dartmouth on Tuesday in order to get higher than a 16 seed [in the NCAA Tournament]" Gelman said. "I think we made a statement today, and that's exactly what we were trying to do."

Harvard's players find out next weekend who their tournament opponent will be. They hope that 100 points against the Ancient Eight's second-best will help erase the memories of the team's early-season out-of-conference losses.

"We sent a strong message out to the nation, and you can quote me on that," Black said. Brown  75 Harvard  104