Hartford Tops Harvard Women's Basketball

In its last game of 2011, the Harvard women’s basketball team was bested by another non-conference opponent, falling, 72-61, to the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Conn. Thursday evening.

The Crimson (5-6), which was coming off of a 63-56 home victory over St. John’s on Dec. 22—its first win against a Big East squad in eight years—was unable to carry its momentum into its matchup with the Hawks (9-4), who maintained their perfect record at Chase Family Arena.

“[Thursday’s result] was a pretty disappointing game for our team,” said co-captain Brogan Berry, whose squad turned the ball over 24 times and trailed by 12 at the end of the first half.

Harvard utilized the holiday break to prepare for the contest, but, according to Berry, failed to execute its strategy.

“We knew their strength was their offensive system,” Berry said. “When it came down to it, we knew what they were doing. We just had breakdowns in our defense and weren’t able to counter.”

Hartford capitalized on the Crimson’s defensive lapses, scoring 72 points—its highest output of the season—on 22 assists.

“We weren’t mentally ready for the game,” Harvard coach Kathy Delany-Smith said, “Every single one of [our players] was disconnected.”

Scoring on its first three trips up the floor, Hartford put its opponent on its heels early. And while the Crimson players struggled to get their heads in the game, Hartford’s Nikkia Smith took over.

“[Smith] definitely had a phenomenal game,” said Berry of the Hawks’ forward, who finished with 25 points. “I don’t think we were expecting it from her, and that might have been a weakness of ours. We weren’t able to stop her as a team as we had planned.”

In Hartford’s last outing against Harvard on Dec. 3, 2010, Smith—then a sophomore—put up 10 points, the first double-figure scoring performance of her collegiate career. This time around, Smith took on an even greater scoring role, notching a career-high 25 points.

“[Smith] is a very, very good player, but you never let anyone score 20-whatever points,” Delany-Smith said, “If someone scores points on you, you have to go ahead and do something, and we didn’t.”

Hartford also received solid performances from Smith’s classmates, Daphne Elliot and Ruthanne Doherty, who posted 14 and 13 points, respectively, and five rebounds apiece.

Hartford outshot the Crimson in Thursday’s contest, going 49.2 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from beyond the arc, compared to Harvard’s clips of 42.9 percent from the field and 23.5 percent from deep

Facing the Hawks’ offensive heat, Harvard found itself behind for the entire game, trailing by 15 with 4:42 to play in the first half.

“Instead of coming together as a team and believing in themselves like in the St. John’s game, [they] became more disconnected,” said Delany-Smith of her players.

The Crimson went on to rally in the second half, outscoring Hartford, 32-31, in the frame, but wasn’t able to overcome its 12-point halftime deficit.

“Halftime was kind of a wake-up call for us,” Berry said, “We knew what we were doing wrong. We just had to regroup and re-attack the game.”

With 7:44 remaining, Berry sunk a pair of free throws for Harvard to make it a six-point ball game.

Harvard’s regular contributors helped narrow the gap, with four players scoring indouble figures. Sophomore guard Christine Clark led the Crimson in both scoring and rebounding with 15 points and nine rebounds. Close behind Clark were junior forward Emma Golen (12 points and eight rebounds), junior forward Victoria Lippert (12 points and two rebounds), and Berry (10 points and four rebounds).

"We definitely started picking it up on defense and that led to some easy baskets on offense,” Berry said. “At the end of the game we just took it one possession at a time”.

But ultimately, the gap proved too sizable for the Crimson to overcome, and the Hawks cruised to a comfortable 72-61 victory.

“We dug ourselves a big hole, and we couldn’t climb out of it,” Delany-Smith said. “If [they] had played the first half the way they played their second half it would have been a totally different outcome.”