Crimson Falls in Finals of Minnesota Tournament

At the Best Buy Classic in Minneapolis, Minn., the Harvard women’s basketball team leveled its record at 4-4 with a win against Alcorn State Friday, but the squad quickly fell back below .500 with a loss against Minnesota the following day.

“The first night was a really good win against a really athletic team,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “We played [Minnesota] really well. I was pretty pleased that we were playing them evenly with about eight minutes to go even though our shots weren’t falling, and then we just lost our legs.”

MINNESOTA 79, HARVARD 53

After cruising to a 78-55 win on Friday, Harvard found itself in the opposite situation the following day. The Crimson fell to Minnesota by nearly the same score, 79-53, on Saturday.

Following a 50-percent shooting performance from the field against Alcorn State in its first game of the Best Buy Classic, Harvard (4-5) made only 29 percent of its attempts against the Golden Gophers (6-5).

The loss snapped the Crimson’s three-game winning streak.

“We unfortunately had to play back-to-back days and Minnesota didn’t,” Delaney-Smith said. “That’s just an incredible disadvantage. The score was not an indication of the game. Three quarters of the game were well played and fairly competitive.”

Harvard fell behind 9-2 early and held only one lead during the duration of the contest.

While the Crimson kept the game within single digits for most of the first 30 minutes of play, Minnesota extended its lead late.

A Missy Mullins jump shot with 9:30 left cut the Gophers’ lead to seven, 49-42, but Minnesota responded quickly. Three minutes later, the Gophers held a comfortable 19-point advantage.

“They capitalized on our defensive lapses in second half,” co-captain Brogan Berry said. “With a team like Minnesota, you can’t take any possessions off on defense. We were playing on our heels during the second half.”

In the losing effort, junior forward Emma Golen led the Crimson with a career-high 13 points, 10 of which came in the first half.

Berry came close to registering a triple-double, finishing with 11 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds. Those eight assists were enough to push her into fourth place in assists in Harvard history with 439.

Sophomore guard Christine Clark also reached double digits, extending her streak of tallying 10 or more points to 11 straight games going back to last season.

But she missed her second free throw of the night after making 29 of her last attempts at the charity stripe.

HARVARD 78, ALCORN STATE 55

With the game tied at 7-7 in its early stages, an Emma Golen three sparked a Harvard 21-3 run that give it an early 18-point lead.

The Crimson would not look back, as it rolled by Alcorn State, 78-55, Friday.

“We came out really strong against Alcorn State,” Berry said. “It was a feel good game. I think we needed it.”

After starting the year 0-3, Harvard won three of its next four contests to level its record at 4-4.

Alcorn State has been unable to recover from early season woes and now finds itself at 0-6.

“Their record is deceiving because they’ve played some big time programs,” Delaney-Smith said. “I thought we played really well against them.”

Junior forward Victoria Lippert led the team early, finishing with 13 points in the first half before the team entered the locker room with an eight-point lead.

The Crimson extended its lead further in the second half, as Berry tallied 13 second-half points and Clark added 14.

Berry led the squad with a game-high 19 points.

Four players finished in double figures for the Ivy representative.

Clark totaled 16 points, eight of which came at the free-throw line. The sophomore stretched her made-free-throws streak to 28.

In Harvard’s first of two games in the Best Buy Classic, the offense clicked. The team made exactly half of its 52 field-goal attempts and benefited from 44 rebounds compared to Alcorn State’s 28.

“Alcorn State was an athletic and physical team,” Berry said. “Our turnovers were way too high, but our defense was there, and our rebounding has been strong all year. There was a lot more good than bad.”

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.