Untitled Document
Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale



 Page 2 of 2 ALL<12
Username Post: NIT        (Topic#21329)
weinhauers_ghost 
Postdoc
Posts: 2125

Age: 64
Loc: New York City
Reg: 12-14-09
NIT
03-14-18 09:04 PM - Post#253131    
    In response to TheLine

Bassey is doing everything he can to get his team back into this one.

Two missed FTs hurt, though.

Agreed about the way the outcome would have changed had Towns been healthy.

Edited by weinhauers_ghost on 03-14-18 09:05 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32682

Reg: 11-21-04
03-14-18 09:04 PM - Post#253132    
    In response to TheLine

What has been happening in the last minutes makes one wonder why Harvard never tried pressing Penn.

 
TheLine 
Professor
Posts: 5597

Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
03-14-18 09:06 PM - Post#253134    
    In response to palestra38

Foreman and Woods are both good at not getting trapped.


 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
03-14-18 09:06 PM - Post#253135    
    In response to palestra38

Maybe because Penn pushed the pace on them in Game #2 with great success.

 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
03-14-18 09:07 PM - Post#253136    
    In response to TheLine

Betley is not good at not getting trapped.

 
weinhauers_ghost 
Postdoc
Posts: 2125

Age: 64
Loc: New York City
Reg: 12-14-09
03-14-18 09:07 PM - Post#253137    
    In response to palestra38

That is indeed a good question. I was wondering about that one as well. The only real pressure they applied down the stretch Sunday was that double team of Betley that resulted in that (questionable) foul call.

 
TheLine 
Professor
Posts: 5597

Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
03-14-18 09:09 PM - Post#253138    
    In response to weinhauers_ghost

They kind of tried a few times but Penn read it except for when they played Betley in the corner.

Last few seconds have been a comedy of errors.


 
HARVARDDADGRAD 
Postdoc
Posts: 2685

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
03-14-18 09:26 PM - Post#253143    
    In response to TheLine

Once Aiken got hurt Harvard stopped pressing - unless if it had to in final minutes. Without Aiken, McCarthy and Farley, Harvard had a shortage of guards this year. Juzang (4th string PG), Johnson and Bassey collectively only had one sub - the freshman Haskett. This starting 3 would play 35-40 minutes on back to back nights and so Harvard couldn't afford to press, or be too aggressive and pick up fouls.

With Aiken, McCarthy and Farley back, plus top 135+ ranked freshmen guards Spencer Freedman and Noah Kirkwood, Harvard will be much more aggressive next year. These are all additions as no one in the rotation is graduating. In fact, Corey Johnson was the only Junior.

Assuming good health, Harvard should be significantly better each of the next two years.



 
HARVARDDADGRAD 
Postdoc
Posts: 2685

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
03-14-18 09:33 PM - Post#253145    
    In response to HARVARDDADGRAD

By the way, I'm still amazed at how versatile this Harvard team is. Chris Lewis had what could be his worst game of the year, no Towns or Aiken, and they lose by the made free throw differential. If Harvard makes its free throws at the rate they'd been making them this month, Harvard wins or at least we're still playing. Remarkable.

Nice job guys! Gotta be over the top excited about the next two years.

 
digamma 
Masters Student
Posts: 466

Loc: Minneapolis
Reg: 11-27-11
03-14-18 09:51 PM - Post#253147    
    In response to HARVARDDADGRAD

Hard not to like, ahem love, this team. Just so much fight in them. Can't wait to watch next season.

Maybe we'll even get to avoid the early season revolving door of starters, though I'm sure Tommy will want to see what Bacow can do to replace Faust.

 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
03-14-18 10:01 PM - Post#253148    
    In response to digamma

Well, you stole Faust away from us but at least you couldn't nab Rosen.



 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
03-15-18 07:22 AM - Post#253169    
    In response to penn nation

In Betley’s Defense, in those situations what we are trying to do is take the foul they are intending to give and get our best shooter to the line. Against both Harvard and Yale, we were running guys to the corner in that situation.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
03-15-18 07:53 AM - Post#253171    
    In response to digamma

It's the most talent Tommy will have ever had at Harvard and a team that can play so many different ways. He could have another Murphy's law year like this one, so that doesn't guarantee much. If Aiken never gets healthy, Towns has something that will creep into next season or any number of other unforeseen losses, who knows.

But if all return full strength, Harvard will only start two of the guys that started last night and likely only four of the guys who played last night will be in the Top 8 of the rotation. That's crazy for a team that didn't play any seniors last night.

 
SomeGuy 
Professor
Posts: 6391

Reg: 11-22-04
03-15-18 08:55 AM - Post#253175    
    In response to mrjames

It will be interesting to see how the mix comes together. I assume your view is that Lewis and Bassey are the returning starters? Who would be the 2 who stick in the top 8? Johnson and Djuricic? I really like Juzang and think his play was a big part of the story of Harvard’s strong play in conference. Doesn’t mean he has to play next year, but I think he should somehow.

On the earlier comment about lack of ball movement without Towns, I actually like the movement better. Bassey creates for shooters (though he turned it over way too much last night). With Towns, it sometimes feels like everybody stands around because Seth can shoot it over guys when he isn’t open. The game becomes purely how to isolate Towns and Lewis.

Which brings me to Amaker as a coach. It isn’t necessarily rocket science how you get a big guy posted up, but Harvard does a very nice job of moving the ball to get Lewis chances where he is hard to double. It’s not necessarily in game adjustments, but it is coaching. And last night, he certainly made adjustments in the 4th quarter (sounds weird) that seemed to work.

His reputation as a poor game coach may partially be that he was a comparatively weak game coach at the highest level. I don’t think he is a poor game coach at our level. I also think, as we’ve seen with Donahue becoming a defensive coach, that coaches change over time. So that old narrative may have been true at the time, but may not be what Amaker is today.

We can talk about recruiting advantages or whatever, but when I look at Harvard I see decades of lousy basketball right up until Amaker walked in the door. I don’t see how we can say anything other than that Harvard (and the league generally) is lucky to have him, and he has done a tremendous job turning around the program. I think the level of coaching in our league right now is very high.

 
mobrien 
Senior
Posts: 389

Loc: New York
Reg: 04-18-17
03-15-18 12:43 PM - Post#253195    
    In response to SomeGuy

Did we ever find out what exactly Aiken's injury was? I know it was a knee, but was it just a sprain, or something else? In other words, is there any chance he's going to need surgery?

 
bradley 
PhD Student
Posts: 1842

Age: 74
Reg: 01-15-16
03-15-18 01:10 PM - Post#253196    
    In response to mrjames

Harvard will indeed be the clear favorite to win the IL regular season next year. Amaker did an amazing job this year considering all of the obstacles.

Rather than relying on winning IvyMadness, I am sure that Amaker will be focused on having a strong non-conference schedule with the obvious goal to have an excellent record to minimize the risk associated with our beloved IvyMadness Tournament if it remains a one bid league. He is probably going to hope that the IL, as a whole, does much better than this year in non-conference play.

Will it all happen? You never know but the Crimson should be very strong next year but perhaps not quite as good as some Harvard fans envision -- time will tell.

 
HARVARDDADGRAD 
Postdoc
Posts: 2685

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
03-15-18 02:49 PM - Post#253224    
    In response to bradley

You do have a point. Still missing a strong and athletic power forward. No Mondou-Misi or Casey with that unique combination of athleticism and size. Someone who can play with Chris Lewis.

Am I missing someone? Towns and Djuricic were forced into that position this year. I don't see that we have an incoming freshman in that mold.

 
SRP 
Postdoc
Posts: 4894

Reg: 02-04-06
03-15-18 07:24 PM - Post#253317    
    In response to HARVARDDADGRAD

Harvard should be excellent next year. This year a lot of guys had to stretch themselves into new roles and the team got used to bringing a strong defensive effort almost every possession.

I still am not enamored of a healthy Aiken as the primary PG, but if the highly touted freshman can step into that role, Aiken can be a small but deadly shooting guard. Don't know how the presence of those two guys would affect Harvard's D, however.

 
mobrien 
Senior
Posts: 389

Loc: New York
Reg: 04-18-17
03-15-18 08:07 PM - Post#253321    
    In response to TheLine

I guess the odds that Aiken is going to need surgery are pretty good considering that he had it today. Did everyone else see this?

https://twitter.com/TOMMYMAC_2015/status/ 974254498...

Any word on how serious it was?



 
HARVARDDADGRAD 
Postdoc
Posts: 2685

Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
03-15-18 08:25 PM - Post#253323    
    In response to mobrien

If you recall, Bryce was cleared to play after the initial injury and some rest. I believe a commentator suggested later that the knee wasn't responding. From what I've heard, I'd expect Bryce back at full strength next year.

Anyone know about Seth's knee issue?

Be nice to have Tommy McCarthy as well. A great kid and a leader.

 
 Page 2 of 2 ALL<12
Icon Legend Permissions Topic Options
Report Post

Quote Post

Quick Reply

Print Topic

Email Topic

5231 Views




Copyright © 2004-2012 Basketball U. Terms of Use for our Site and Privacy Policy are applicable to you. All rights reserved.
Basketball U. and its subsidiaries are not affiliated in any way with any NCAA athletic conference or member institution.
FusionBB™ Version 2.1 | ©2003-2007 InteractivePHP, Inc.
Execution time: 0.388 seconds.   Total Queries: 16   Zlib Compression is on.
All times are (GMT -0500) Eastern. Current time is 11:41 AM
Top