NOTEBOOK: Harvard’s First-Half Play Improves in Loss

NEW YORK—After a recent string of poor first-halves, a good start was a point of emphasis for the Harvard men’s basketball team heading into Saturday’s game against Columbia.

In its loss against Yale, the Crimson headed into halftime trailing 45-40. The next day, although Harvard beat Brown in dramatic fashion, it was losing 32-20 at the break. Friday, en route to a 96-75 loss to Cornell, the Crimson never recovered from a 51-35 halftime deficit.

Saturday, however, Harvard managed to rectify its struggles. A 10-0 surge in the middle of the half lifted the Crimson to a lead that it maintained for most of the half.

The run began with a three-pointer from the wing by freshman forward Peter Boehm. Then, captain Andrew Pusar got to the line, where he hit both free-throws. Junior guard Jeremy Lin intercepted a pass on the defensive end and took the ball all the way to the rim to stretch the lead before senior guard Drew Housman capped the run with a three-pointer from the corner.

Harvard appeared to be heading into the intermission with this lead, its first since the victory over Boston College, until Lions guard K.J. Matsui drained back-to-back three-pointers to gain a 34-33 edge.

“We were pleased with the first half up until the last two and a half, three minutes,” head coach Tommy Amaker said.

Matsui shouldered much of the scoring load for Columbia in the first half. The senior began the game hitting two long-distance three-pointers to send the Lions to a 6-0 lead, and he struck again later in the first half to tie the game at 20.

“We were hoping that we would not allow him to get open for three-point shots, but he certainly did,” Amaker said. “His shooting was the key for their ability to have the halftime lead.”

In spite of Matsui’s shooting, the Crimson’s solid play kept the score even. With a 14-3 run in the first 5 minutes of the second half, Harvard built a considerable lead, one that would not ultimately last.

FREE-THROW SHOOTING

The Crimson’s second-half run was keyed by its ability to convert from the charity stripe. Just over seven minutes into the half, Columbia picked up its seventh team foul and put Harvard into the bonus.

The Crimson took advantage, hitting 13-of-15 in the second half and 19-of-25 for the game.

“Coach has always made it a point to get to the line,” senior forward Evan Harris said. “We knew we could score points with the clock stopped so we tried to get to the line as much as possible.”

This approach was particularly effective when the offense stalled after the Lions switched to a zone defense late in the second half.

Over the last ten minutes of the game, Harvard managed only five field-goal attempts, yet it scored eight points thanks to its free-throw shooting.

“It’s tougher for us to score sometimes. The foul-line is one of those areas where we try to manufacture some points,” Amaker said. “We shot a pretty good percentage from there tonight.”

ROUGH ROAD

As if losing in the final seconds was not disappointing enough, it left the Crimson heading home winless on its New York road trip.

“Man, that was just a really tough loss,” Housman said.

Saturday’s loss, which dropped Harvard to a 2-6 record in Ivy League play, came on the heels of a 96-75 drubbing from Cornell.

“We’ve just had enough of this losing, especially after [Friday night] up at Cornell,” Harris said. “I don’t think they were 20 points better than we were.”

As it heads into the second half of league play, the Crimson looks to grow from this tough weekend.

“It was definitely encouraging,” Harris said. “For the first time in a while, we got six, seven stops in a row, which was big. If we can remember that communication and talk we had in that stretch, then take it next week to Princeton and Penn, hopefully we can finally get some wins.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. Walsh can be reached at twalsh@fas.harvard.edu.