The Harvard women completely took Dartmouth out of its comfort zone in the Ivy League opener for both teams, leaving Leede Arena with a comfortable 72-47 victory on Saturday afternoon.
The conference-opening win was the fifth in the last six games for the Crimson and upped the team’s overall mark to 8-6, while the Big Green dropped its third straight game to a Division I opponent and moved to 9-5 on the year.
Harvard used an early 10-2 run, punctuated by back-to-back triples from sophomore guard Alayna Rocco and first-year guard Olivia Jones, to open up a 12-4 lead.
Dartmouth cut the deficit in half but a technical foul on sophomore point guard Zeynep Ozel, who was far away from the ball, sent Katie Krupa to the line and the senior forward connected on both free throws. On the next possession, the Crimson grabbed three offensive boards and put in its fourth attempt to get the lead back to eight.
After junior forward Cate MacDonald connected on an old-fashioned triple following a no-look backward layup for the Big Green, junior forward Abigail Wright hit back-to-back layups to finish the quarter with Harvard up 20-11.
The teams were separated by ten points with just over a minute to go in the second quarter, when Jones grabbed a defensive rebound and fired an outlet pass to sophomore guard Nina Emnace, who took a few steps before nailing a mid-range jumper.
With all five Crimson starters on the bench for the last possession, Jones found Aubrey Shaw behind the three-point line and the 6-foot-2 guard connected from the right elbow to give the visitors a 36-21 advantage at the half.
Despite Wright, the team’s leading scorer, picking up a third foul early in the second half and sitting for five minutes, Harvard started the frame on a 10-2 run to make it a 23-point game. By time the third quarter ended, the Crimson stretched the lead to 60-31 and emptied the bench for most of the fourth quarter.
Some keys to Harvard’s wintry winning day in Hanover:
Pressure
Dartmouth typically plays a methodical half-court game, while Harvard likes to pressure its opponents. Whichever team could control the style had a big advantage in the Ancient Eight opener and that turned out to be the Crimson.
While Harvard had difficulty trying to speed up the game for a full 40 minutes, it was able to pick up the pace in select moments and use its strength to frustrate the Big Green’s shooting rhythm all afternoon.
The Green arrived at the contest shooting 45.4% from two and 32.7% from three, as well as connecting on 7.5 made triples a game, but the Crimson held Dartmouth to 38.5% from inside the arc, 25% from outside the arc and only four three-pointers.
MacDonald had a very productive day for Dartmouth with a career-high 17 points on a 46.7% (7-for-15) effort from the field, but the rest of the team was held to a combined 30 points on 30% (12-for-40) shooting.
Rebounding
One of the key matchups for Saturday’s contest was Harvard’s offensive rebounding (40.3% rate, No. 28 nationally) against Dartmouth’s defensive prowess (73.5% rate, No. 57). Similar to the battle for style, the Crimson came out on top.
Harvard grabbed 50% of its available offensive rebounds, which contributed to 12 more shots than Dartmouth and 18 second-chance points.
Meanwhile, the Crimson had a 69.4% defensive rebounding rate (slightly better than its season-long 68.9%), which limited Dartmouth to only eight second chance points and sparked a transition offense that finished with 16 fast break points.
No one on the victorious team had double digits on the boards, but seven different players had between four and nine rebounds with Wright grabbing a game-high nine (five offensive).
Two-point and free-throw Shooting
After going a combined 4-for-31 (12.9%) from three over the last two games at Lavietes Pavilion, Harvard was hoping going on the road would improve the outside results.
While the team did better from beyond the arc on Saturday, it was probably hoping for a better number than 26.3% (5-for-19). On the other hand, the two-point and free-throw efforts were much more solid.
The Crimson connected on 50% (24-for-48) from two, which was the team’s second-best shooting percentage of the season and the 24 made interior baskets tied its best effort of the year.
Meanwhile, Dartmouth entered the game allowing its opponents a national-low 7.5 free throw attempts per game, but Harvard managed get to the line 11 times and connected on nine attempts (81.8%).
Wright was the top scorer for the victors, totaling 14 points on 54.4% (6-for-11) shooting from the field.
Depth
Playing a physical game, which resulted in four Harvard starters each picking up two fouls in the 15-plus minutes of the game, the Crimson needed to rely on its deeper roster, and their bench delivered.
Collectively, Harvard’s reserves outperformed its Ancient Eight rivals 33-18 on the scoreboard and 22-9 on the glass with Jones leading the way with 11 points and five rebounds, as well as four assists.
Junior guard Mary Hollensteiner finished with seven points and four boards, while Emnace added six points.
Just as important as those performances were the efforts of first-year forward/guard Ava Krumwiede and sophomore forward Asani Ceaser, who averaged a collective 1.0 points, 1.0 rebounds and 4.6 minutes per game and totaled a combined four points, nine rebounds and 16 minutes of action on the afternoon.
Next up
Carrie Moore’s Crimson head back home for a 2 p.m. Jan. 10 matchup against three-time defending regular season champion Columbia, which was shocked, 67-60, by preseason No. 7 Cornell on Saturday afternoon, while Linda Cimino’s Big Green look to get back into the win column when it welcomes the Big Red at 1 p.m. that same day.