Harvard was swept down South last year, falling 84-71 in Philadelphia and 77-44 in Princeton. Only once, in 1984-85, has the Crimson swept the Quakers and Tigers on the road.
The Women
While it may be little surprise that the mean cagers now sport a 3-4 Ivy League mark, it is a surprise that the Harvard women's basketball team--last year's Ivy co-champion--now holds exactly the same Ivy record.
With an 0-3 league start, it looked like there was no hope of the women cagers repeating last year's championship performance.
Three straight Ivy wins--over Cornell, Columbia and Brown--resuscitated the ailing Crimson, but a close defeat by Yale last Saturday leaves the team with a very slim chance of returning to the top of the league.
If Dartmouth sweeps Penn and Princeton this weekend as expected. Harvard will have to duplicate the Big Green's performance to remain, little contention--and even then the Crimson can't loses another league game and need a couple of teams to upset Dartmouth.
Sound tough? It will be.
Even if the Crimson can revenge its Ivy-opening, one point loss to Penn, the third-place Tigers will provide a big challenge for the women cagers.
But while Princeton is capable of crushing Harvard's tittle hopes, the Tigers are also in a key position to keep those hopes alive.
Princeton is the only team to have beaten Dartmouth this season, when the Tigers scored a 60-52 victory over the Big Green in the league' opening weekend. After facing Harvard Friday night in Cambridge, the Tigers will travel to Hanover, N.H. in hopes of completing a sweep of its season series with Dartmouth.
But don't count the Crimson out of the Ball game yet.
Despite splitting its Ivy league contests last weekend, Harvard has shown dramatic improvement in almost all areas of play.
Coming into last week at the bottom of the Ivy League ratings for Field goal and free throw percentage the Crimson has now moved, into third--a notch above Princeton and three above Penn--in shooting from the floor, and fifth from the charity stripe.
The team's shift can in large be credited to the hot shooting of sophomore Sarah Duncan, who shot 75 percent from the floor in both games last weekend. Duncan, who was previously not ranked in the individual shooting stats, now leads the league with a field goal percentage of 63.4. The 6-ft. forward also continues to lead the league in blocks, with 23 in Ivy play, and 37 for the season overall.
Harvard's inside game also improved markedly over the past few games--Duncan's stats reflect the Crimson's growing confidence in its high and mid-post players.
And after being dominated on the boards in almost every game this season. Harvard matched the Bruins and the Ellis in rebounding last Weekend.
Add to that the team's depth and perimeter shooting ability and the Tigers just might be surprised by the Crimson team it comes up against this weekend--especially with the cagers playing on home turf.
Harvard holds a 3-1 record for games played at Briggs Athletic Center, with a 5-9 mark for road contests.