Women's Hoops Set to Defend Ivy Title

The possibilities are endless for the Harvard women’s basketball team in the 2007-2008 season. With a core of veterans, talented freshmen, and a steadfast coach, the Crimson will know no bounds this year. Harvard begins its title defense Saturday with its first game of the season on the road against James Madison.

Last year, Harvard managed to turn around what began as an abysmal season. The Crimson lost its first six games of non-conference play and everyone believed all hope was lost for a team that began with such high hopes. But things began to turn around; the Crimson won its last two non-conference games against San Jose and cross-town rival Boston College.

After disappointing play in the first half of its season, Harvard turned over a new leaf, and exploded in Ivy League competition.

“Those kind of adjustments really came together at the end of the season,” senior co-captain Lindsay Hallion said. “We peaked in terms of being comfortable with each other and comfortable with the offense.”

The comfort that the Crimson found proved to be impossible to stop. Harvard went 13-1 in Ivy League play, only sustaining one loss to Yale.

Harvard’s solid play in the Ancient Eight earned it the No. 15 spot in the Dayton bracket of the NCAA tournament. In first-round play, the Crimson was matched up against Maryland, the defending champions. Harvard fought hard, but in the end it couldn’t keep up with the Terrapins and lost 89-65.

This season, the Crimson wants to surpass wants to go above and beyond last year’s achievements.

“We have really high goals for the season, we’re not going to be satisfied with just winning an Ivy League title,” Hallion said. “Everything will begin there for us, but we recognize the importance of playing much better in the non-conference schedule than we did last year.”

This year the team comes back with a more mature squad, which will display skill, patience, and leadership.

“I would hope that we’re a little more veteran, so we play smarter,” head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

The backcourt is a solid group of three accomplished upperclassmen. Running the point is experienced senior Hallion who was the team’s second-highest scorer and earned a second-team all-Ivy spot. In addition, she finished ninth in scoring in the conference and second in both field goal percentage and free throw percentage. At shooting guard is junior Emily Tay, Harvard’s top scorer last year. Tay averaged 12.9 points-per-game in 28 games, and also led the team in assists and steals. Tay earned a first team all-Ivy spot last season. Finishing up the strong backcourt is junior Niki Finelli. Finelli is an all-around player whose three-point shot can be very dangerous.

The frontcourt will have more of a challenge. The team graduated forward Christiana Lackner, who was a rebounding powerhouse and was a big part of the resurgence Harvard had at the end of last season. Without Lackner, rebounding is the one of the chinks in the team’s armor.

“Rebounding is our weakness,” Hallion said. “How well we do with rebounding will dictate how well we do with wins and losses.”

But there is a contingent of talented freshmen who can fill the void and add to the team. Freshmen such as forwards Claire Wheeler and Emma Markley could both be possibilities to take over Lackner’s job as rebounder.

Leading the team in her 26th season as head coach is Kathy Delaney-Smith, who has amassed an impressive winning record of 382-276.

“Every day Kathy tells us that we can do historic things if we can do this, if we can do that,” Hallion said. “So I’m excited to see what we can do.”