One would expect that after winning the Ivy League with a 13-1 record in 2002 and being picked to win the league again in the preseason media poll, the Harvard women's basketball team, led by reigning Ivy Player of the Year Hana Peljto and 2002 Rookie of the Year Reka Cserny, would be confident in its abilities. In fact, the Crimson might have come to Leede Arena on Saturday believing that the Big Green women's basketball team couldn't top the Crimson on their best day.
At the end of Saturday's Ivy League opener, however, the Crimson made a narrow escape from Hanover after barely surviving one of the Big Green's worst days.
Despite shooting 1-27 from the three-point arc and a paltry 26.7 percent overall, Dartmouth came within three points of knocking off the defending Ivy League Champions, finally falling, 56-53, in front of a boisterous crowd of 1,031 at Leede Arena. In nearly overcoming such uncharacteristic shooting woes the Big Green turned in a performance that left Dartmouth head coach Chris Wielgus with very little to complain about.
"I'm disappointed with the result," Wielgus said of Saturday's game, "But I'm not disappointed with our effort. I thought we played with a lot of confidence and poise."
Dartmouth (5-6, 0-1 Ivy) was led by the frontcourt tandem of Katharine Hanks '03 and Katie Skelly '03, who combined for 31 of Dartmouth's 53 points. Hanks was the game's leading scorer with 19 points, while Skelly led the Big Green with nine rebounds, including 5 on the offensive glass, where the Big Green outrebounded the Crimson, 17-13.
Dartmouth's offensive rebounding, combined with solid ball control (Dartmouth forced 20 Harvard turnovers while giving up the ball 15 times), allowed Dartmouth to take 11 more shots than the Crimson. Furthermore, according to Wielgus, "We were taking a lot of great shots, uncontested shots." However, those shots failed to fall, negating Dartmouth's advantages in offensive rebounding and ball control.
On defense, the Big Green was effective, relegating Peljto to 3-10 shooting from the floor, although the defending Player of the Year finished with 14 points after making 7 of 8 free throws. Cserny led the Crimson with 15 points on 3-of-5 shooting from the floor. The Crimson also turned in a less-than-stellar shooting performance, connecting on 32.7 percent of its shots, but Harvard scored enough to edge out a struggling Big Green squad.
The Big Green has a chance for revenge this coming Saturday, when Dartmouth and Harvard open the Ivy League television schedule with a rematch from Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion. The game, one of six that will be televised on the YES Network, offers the Big Green an excellent opportunity to even the score with the Crimson, as Dartmouth played better on the road in 2001-02 than they did at home. However, according to Wielgus, the site of the game is immaterial.
"We don't care where we play Harvard, whether it's Leede, Lavietes Pavilion, or the schoolyard," Wielgus said. "It's fluff. The uniforms, the ball, it's all fluff."
As Wielgus and her team prepare to head to Cambridge however, their chances of beating the Crimson are hardly fluff. They are very real indeed.
