Men's Hoops Slides Into Fourth

There was a fervor of excitement surrounding this year's Harvard men's basketball team, and indeed surrounding the Ivy League in general, that made the season a great time to be a Harvard basketball fan.

The season saw the arrival of a nationally ranked "powerhouse" from inside the Ivy League when then-No. 8 Princeton brought its suddenly big-time road show and accompanying media circus to homely Lavietes Pavilion on Feb. 7.

Record: 13-13, 6-6 Ivy

Coach: Frank Sullivan

Highlights: Dan Clemente named Ivy Rookie of the Year; Mike Scott earns Second-Team All-Ivy honors

Senior: Mike Scott

By the time it was over, the season had seen a Harvard squad (13-13, 6-8 Ivy) with only one senior, captain Mike Scott, jostle its way through the Ivy season to finish in fourth place, behind Princeton, Penn and Yale.

The Crimson got help from a variety of unexpected sources and amassed some of the most impressive sharpshooting statistics in the nation.

The year included a strong 7-5 nonconference record, back-to-back road wins at Columbia and Cornell, and an inspiring final-weekend homestand of victories over Brown and third-place Yale to ensure a place in the top half of the league.

That the final homestand was also Scott's final two games in a Harvard uniform may be coincidental, but to those in attendance it seemed quite clear that Scott knew exactly what his career had left.

Scott ended a brilliant four years with the Crimson with a truly spectacular and memorable weekend. The 81-77 and 111-63 wins over Yale and Brown, respectively, were the perfect swan song for the floor leader whose intangibles and defensive ability made him among the most underrated and dangerous players in the league.

"We may not have lived up to expectations entirely," said junior point guard Tim Hill after the two games. "But we wanted to go out on a good note."

For the weekend, Scott was an unholy 19-22 from the floor with 12 rebounds, 10 assists and three blocks. He put up 26 against Yale, then tossed in 20 in limited action against Brown before bowing out in the second half as the Crimson ran away with the victory.

"Scott got a chance to perform and really had a great end to the season," Hill said.

But the weekend was also merely the pinnacle of Scott's season-long production. His 15.1 points-per-game were fourth in the league. He was also in the top 10 in steals (fourth, 1.85-per-game), assists (eighth, 3.0), field goal percentage (ninth, 46.9) and rebounding (10th, 5.92).

Scott garnered Second-Team All-Ivy recognition for his efforts and was named the league's Player of the Week after the Yale-Brown weekend.

While Harvard finished strong, a strong non-conference run to start the season is what kept the squad at .500 after it was hit by the rigors of grueling league play.

Without a doubt, the biggest fish to splash upon the men's basketball scene during that opening run was Ivy Rookie of the Year Dan Clemente. The 6'7" forward showcased the complete game at the offensive end, displaying confidence both from the perimeter and with his back to the basket.

Clemente burst onto the scene from near obscurity in the season's opening games. The freshman put on an encouraging 18-point performance in the season opener with New Hampshire and went on to lead the team in scoring a team-high eight times.

Clemente's blend of size, confidence and pure shooting ability made him a threat from anywhere on the floor and presented especially difficult match-up problems in the under-sized Ivy League.

"Clemente really creates space for himself well," Sullivan said. "He can beat people off the dribble, and he's very difficult for a four man to guard."

Clemente twice poured in a school-record six three-pointers in a game, shot 48 percent from the floor and finished ninth in the league in scoring.

Clemente's long-range prowess was part of what became the best three-point shooting team in school history. Harvard made a school-record 188 shots from behind the arc and twice set the school record for threes in a single game--against Southern Methodist and Brown--with 14.

Junior guard Mike Beam shot an amazing 51.3 percent from distance, the fourth-best mark in the nation, and the team overall fired up threes with 42-percent accuracy.

After rolling its pre-conference momentum through a 3-1 start in the league, Harvard began to struggle when inexperience and a few previously hidden flaws rose to the surface.

"We played well at times, [but] we also had trouble finding our comfort level out there," Sullivan said.

The key to finding that comfort level, not surprisingly, was defense. Harvard allowed 69 points per game defensively on the season and permitted its opposition to shoot 47 percent from the floor.

Meanwhile, during the eight Ivy losses over the next 10 games, Harvard never held the opposition under 70 points, while in the season's 13 wins, only twice did the opponent surpass the 70-point mark.

"This team has plenty of talent [to win] if they can just play solid defense," Scott said.

One of the few true constants through this rough stretch and through the season as a whole was the floor leadership of junior point guard Tim Hill. Practically the only truly gametested player besides Scott entering the season, Hill showed the gamesmanship, control and floor leadership that any contending team must have from its point guard.

"Hill has consistently played at a very high level for us," Sullivan said.

Hill notched 132 assists on the season, tops in the league, and his 14.9 points-per-game scoring was good enough for fifth in the Ivies.