W. Hoops Returns To NCAAs For First Time Since 1998

After the Harvard women’s basketball team blew away Dartmouth to close out its regular season, Big Green Coach Chris Wielgus acknowledged a few obvious facts about the Crimson in defeat.

“I’ve been part of many championship teams, and Harvard played like a championship team,” Wielgus said. “They’re experienced. They have five seniors that have not put a ring on their finger, and they got it this year. That’s what you need to win—experience, depth and a little bit of luck.”

Harvard was the preseason favorite to win the Ivy title not just because it returned the vast majority of its scoring talent from last year’s second-place team, but also because of the sense of desperation from its seniors. The Crimson lived up to expectations, winning the league title by a school record-breaking margin in the standings, outdistancing nearest competitors Cornell and Penn by five games with a 13-1 league record.

The senior class—having lived for four years in the shadow of the 1998 team’s upset of No. 1 seed Stanford—hoped to make some history of its own this season in its first-round NCAA game against North Carolina. Harvard started off the game with a promising 8-4 lead—thanks mostly to two threes from co-captain Katie Gates—and stayed within three points of the Tar Heels through the game’s first 11 minutes. But a 14-2 Tar Heel run buried the Crimson in a hole it couldn’t escape, ending in an 85-58 defeat.

Of the Crimson’s 22 wins this season, few came easily. They were typically characterized by early deficits and blown leads, but always comebacks—so much so that Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith called Harvard the best team at erasing deficits she has ever had in her 20-year career.

The journey began on Nov. 17, the day the Harvard football team closed out is best season since 1913. That evening at Lavietes, the women’s basketball team aimed to begin a run at a historic season of its own.

In that opening 77-54 victory over Wagner, Harvard unveiled its newest weapon to complement eventual 2002 Ivy Player of the Year, sophomore Hana Peljto, and all-time assist leader senior Jenn Monti. That weapon came in the form of a lanky 6’3 freshman center named Reka Cserny who could do more than rebound and hit one-foot jump shots. She could also drive inside, hit the three and play great defense. Cserny scored 19 and grabbed eight boards in her Harvard debut, making her year-long sabbatical with the Hungarian junior national team prior to this season well worth the wait.

Harvard’s pre-Ivy campaign was marked by comebacks. The Crimson overcame halftime deficits against Central Connecticut, Rhode Island, Northeastern and Manhattan. The comebacks, often the result of Peljto or Cserny returning after sitting with foul trouble, became routine by January.

Harvard’s 88-77 Ivy opening win over Dartmouth featured end-to-end scoring—much of it on the Crimson side coming from one player, as Peljto scored 17 points in a row for Harvard at one point.

Dartmouth and Penn—not 2001 Ivy cellar-dweller Princeton—were supposed to be Harvard’s toughest challenges, yet the Tigers were the team that dealt Harvard its only Ivy loss. The Crimson turned a nine-point halftime deficit into a four-point lead late in the game but couldn’t win it. Still, Harvard would never lose again during the regular season, as it came back the next day with a 20-point blowout of defending Ivy champion Penn at the Palestra going into exam break.

“We almost did everything right that we didn’t do against Princeton,” Peljto said.

Harvard had to play through some adversity when it came back from exams, as Cserny missed the next two games due to injury. The Crimson didn’t let down, though, thanks to junior Kate Ides stepping into the starting lineup and senior Sharon Nunamaker making important contributions off the bench. Harvard rebounded from halftime deficits to win against Brown and Yale, then coasted over Cornell and Columbia the following weekend to gain sole possession of first place.

In its rematch against Penn, Harvard began a new discouraging pattern—blowing leads. The Crimson opened the game with a 16-6 run but found itself down by as many as five in the second half. Three clutch threes by Tubridy were the key to Harvard’s victory.

It was a similar story against Princeton when Harvard went up 16-3 early but could never put the Tigers away comfortably en route to a 78-70 win.

Then, in the most important league showdown of the season, Harvard narrowly averted disaster against top Ivy challenger Cornell, who had hung tough, just a half-game back in the standings.

Up 62-50 with 2:37 left, Harvard tried to run out the clock too early and let the Big Red back into the game. It took two more overtimes and a Peljto fainting spell before Harvard finally won, 77-75.

The Cornell game was so draining that Harvard fell behind by 12 early in its next game against Columbia before coasting to a 61-49 victory. The Big Red had a more difficult time recovering and did not win another Ivy game for the rest of the season.

Cornell’s struggles allowed Harvard to become the quickest team in school history to clinch a share of the Ivy title. The Crimson claimed the outright crown with a victory over Yale and posted comfortable wins over Brown and Dartmouth to close out its Ivy season.

Despite the victories, Harvard couldn’t be happy about everything. The Crimson struggled in the second half of each of those last three wins, leaving few examples all season when it could truly say it had played a full 40 minutes.

“We’re Ivy League champions without really playing that well all year,” Peljto said the night Harvard clinched the title. “Tonight was probably one of our best games and it still wasn’t complete. Maybe in the tournament our best games will come out.”

But it didn’t turn out that way. Peljto struggled with just 13 points in the tournament game, none in the first half after an opening-minute jumper. Cserny, on the other hand, showed poise beyond her years, shooting 8-for-9 from the line and scoring a team-high 16 points.

When the game finally ended, the teams shook hands vigorously and the Harvard team put its hands together at center court in a sign of unity.

Once the stage was cleared, the Tar Heels did a victory lap with the cheerleaders and looked ahead to the continuation of their season. Meanwhile, the Crimson players coped with the end of theirs.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

RECORD 22-6 (13-1 Ivy, 1st place)

COACH Kathy Delaney-Smith

CAPTAINS Laura Barnard, Katie Gates

HIGHLIGHTS Sophomore Hana Peljto wins Ivy Player of the Year honors and freshman Reka Cserny earns Ivy Rookie honors. Senior Jenn Monti breaks the single-season and career records for assists.