On consecutive nights this weekend the men's basketball team rallied back from early deficits only to see its comeback attempts fall short. The Bears dropped a 56-52 decision at Dartmouth on Friday and lost 92-88 at Harvard on Saturday, falling to 1-3 in Ivy League play (6-13 overall).
The narrow losses were tough for Brown to swallow.
"When you're that close, it's always frustrating just because you know it's a game you can win," said guard Damon Huffman '08. "That's part of the way the Ivy League works, and you always have to keep your head up because the Ivy League is basically a 14-game tournament."
Bruno's offense struggled all night against the Big Green, shooting just 36.1 percent from the field. While Dartmouth's long and athletic defense deserved credit for Brown's shooting woes, much of the onus fell on the Bears' inability to execute.
"To be honest, it was more us," Huffman said when asked about Dartmouth's defense. "We turned the ball over, made a lot of mental errors and just weren't as crisp as we should have been."
The Bears fell behind 46-37 midway through the second half, but co-captain Mark McAndrew '08 helped keep the game close. On a bleak night for Brown offense, McAndrew finished with 25 points, including 12-of-12 shooting from the free throw line.
"Given the fact that I had been shooting the ball well from the outside, teams were trying to take the three-pointer away from me," McAndrew said. "We were struggling to get some points on the board, and I made a concerted effort to attack the rim off the dribble and get some fouls."
With 55 seconds left, Bruno trailed just 54-52 with a chance to tie or take the lead. Unfortunately, Brown turned the ball over before getting off a shot on its final possession, and two free throws by Dartmouth's DeVon Mosley sealed a Big Green victory.
"We set up a penetrate-and-score opportunity," Huffman said of the final possession. "If (point guard and co-captain) Marcus (Becker '07) couldn't score, he was going to pitch it out to one of the guys on the sideline. Their defender cut him off, and when he tried to pass it, the defender got his hands on the ball."
In Cambridge the following evening, the Bears found themselves in an even deeper hole. Brown spent much of the game trailing by double digits as the Crimson shot a scorching 61.2 percent from the field and 25-of-30 from the free-throw line. Harvard used its sharp shooting to take a 40-31 lead into the locker room at halftime and jumped out to a 50-38 lead with 10:01 left in the game.
To Brown's credit, the lead shrank for the rest of the game. After a quiet start, Huffman scored 20 of his 26 points in the second half, and the rest of the offense picked it up as well. Five Bears finished the night in double figures.
"Everyone was in a real attack mode, and we had a variety of guys like Scott (Friske '09), Chris (Skrelja '09) and Colin (Aldridge '10) step up and make some key shots," McAndrew said. "We continuously scored offensively more than anything."
Switching to a 1-2-2 press defense triggered the Bears' rapid scoring in the second half. While Harvard continued to shoot well, the new alignment gave the visitors a little extra boost on offense.
"Marcus was a pain-in-the-neck on the 1-2-2 and caused some turnovers," McAndrew said. "He really did a nice job of turning over (Harvard point guard) Drew Housman and converting that into easy buckets for us."
Yet for the second night in a row, it was almost but not quite. Harvard found itself in the bonus early in the second half and took advantage, netting 21 of its 52 second-half points from the charity stripe, including its last 14 points of the game. Brad Unger put the finishing touches on the Crimson win, sinking two free throws with four seconds left for the final 92-88 score.
"That's the part of basketball that's interesting because if you're in the bonus early, you can just milk it," Huffman said. "We knew Harvard was a good free-throw shooting team, and the cards seemed to fall that way."
"The first trend (we need to reverse) is getting out to a better start," he said. "We put ourselves in a hole the first three minutes of (each) game. We need to come out with the mentality that we need to play hard all the time, not just when we're losing."
The team needs to do a better job of asserting itself early in games, and the second half of the Harvard game was a good start, McAndrew said
"We need the confidence as a team that when we step on the floor, we want to impose our style of play on the opposing team," he said. "It's all about (coming) out of the gates knowing that your style and your ability to play basketball is better than theirs. I think some of those guys are now coming around and realizing that this is how we have to do it."
The motivation to play hard will not be in short supply this weekend, when perennial league powers the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton come to town on Friday and Saturday night, respectively. The first game will mark the return of former Head Coach Glen Miller, which the players have eagerly anticipated since Miller took the Penn job last April.
"It's definitely a game we've been looking forward to since we get to play against our own coach," Huffman said. "It's a motivating factor, but you have to control your emotions. If you get too amped up, you won't play as focused as you should."
The tip-off for both games will be at 7 p.m. at the Pizzitola Center.
