Hoops Defense No Match for Torrid Reed

Harvard sophomore guard Michael Beal looked at the stat sheet after the Harvard men’s basketball team’s game against Maine last night and muttered to himself in amazement, “36 points.”

Beal was referring to the scoring rampage of Black Bears guard Kevin Reed, who led his team to a convincing 89-78 win over the Crimson.

A quick glance at the rosters of the two teams might suggest that Harvard—especially without 7’ sophomore center Brian Cusworth—would be too short to match up with Maine’s size. As it turned out, the Crimson guards were a little too slow to stay with Reed.

“Reed is an explosive talent,” Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. “He’s very tough off the dribble and on a couple of those shots he was tremendous with guys in his face all over him.”

Reed came into last night’s game leading the Black Bears in scoring, averaging 14.5 points per game.

The Crimson immediately keyed its defense toward him, having junior captain Jason Norman shadow him all over the court and helping out whenever Reed drove the lane.

But all the help in the world couldn’t slow him down. Reed eclipsed his season average after just 12 minutes and finished the first half with 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field, including a 4-for-5 performance from behind the arc.

Harvard stuck with its man-to-man defense throughout much of the first half, trying a zone briefly, but with little success.

“We couldn’t get the defensive game in front of us,” Sullivan said. “And they have got such great shooters that a zone was really a second option. We tried zone a little but by that time the score had taken off way too much.”

Reed and his backcourt mate Eric Dobson pushed the tempo right from the outset. Dobson—who finished with 12 points and eight assists—regularly beat the Harvard defense down the court in fast-break situations.

And with Reed hitting everything in sight, the Crimson never had a chance to catch up.

“We knew that with their two-guard combination of Dobson and [Reed] they were going to be very up-tempo,” Beal said. “We watched a lot of tape and Dobson just likes to drive...If you stop him, he’ll just kick [the ball] out.”

Reed and Dobson didn’t cool off much during the break, either. With Harvard trying to make a comeback, Reed stepped up once again.

After the Crimson closed the deficit to 10 with over eight minutes left in the game, Reed drained a three with 6’8 sophomore forward Matt Stehle running right into him.

Reed then sealed the contest with two steals in the final 97 seconds, ending any chance of a miracle comeback for Harvard.

Although Reed took advantage of his opportunities, Beal felt the Crimson backcourt gave him too much room to operate throughout the game.

“We drill closing out the shooter,” Beal said of team’s defense. “When you let a team shoot 70 percent in the first half there’s no way you can win.”