Harvard Also Has a Guard Who Can Play
CAMRBIDGE, Mass. – Things are a little different now than they were two years ago for Jim Goffredo. The difference isn’t just that he wasn’t having 33-point outings back then.
The Harvard junior guard has come alive this season as a regular, highlighted by his career-high 33 points against Dartmouth in Harvard’s league opener last Saturday. Although his scoring was well-balanced with 17 in the first half and 16 in the second, he set the tone early on. With the Big Green having made a run to cut an early Crimson lead down to 15-13, Goffredo hit consecutive three-pointers and two free throws as part of an 11-2 run all by himself.
“It’s just terrific to see him have a night like that,” said head coach Frank Sullivan, who noted that Goffredo probably benefited more than anyone else from the holiday time off. Goffredo was hospitalized with a staph infection before the Albany game and did not make the trip with the team.
With that effort, he was named the Ivy League’s Player of the Week, and he jumped ahead of teammate Matt Stehle into second place in the league in scoring. Goffredo’s breakout season has just gotten better with time, and not just on the offensive end.
Goffredo could always score, averaging over 30 points as a high school senior, but his defense has been the key with the Crimson. It was a real key against Dartmouth, where he shut down leading scorer Leon Pattman at home and held him to just 11 points in Hanover on Friday night.
As a freshman, Goffredo was the top scoring reserve and newcomer on the Crimson. That might sound good, but he was on a 4-23 team and had a rough go of it. His playing time was limited coming off the bench, but he also didn’t have seniors to help bring him forward like most freshmen do. It wasn’t that the Crimson had bad kids; rather, that team had no seniors at all. On that young team, it was some of the sophomores who helped bring him along. But playing little and losing constantly made it a difficult time, despite some occasional glimpses of what he can do, especially later in the year. He scored a season-high 15 points against Brown in late February, and finished the season with a team-high 13 points one week later.
The Crimson improved last season, and Goffredo was in the background again. Now, his time to shine was going to come with the departure of Kevin Rogus and Jason Norman. He continued to work on his game in the off-season, playing in a summer league near his hometown of La Crescenta, Calif., with and against many players from the Los Angeles area schools like USC and UCLA. One of his teammates was Crimson freshman Drew Housman, which is one reason they have clicked on the court this year. They struck up a friendship there and it has helped during this season. He also knew freshman Evan Harris beforehand.
Goffredo freely admits that playing more minutes is the prime reason for his breakout, but it’s to his credit that he has taken advantage of the opportunity. He has reached double figures in scoring in all but two games, and is shooting over 92 percent from the foul line while tying for second on the team in steals with 26. Most importantly, the Crimson are winning, as they stand 10-5 overall and 2-0 in Ivy League play after Friday’s win.
With the rest of Ivy League play ahead after a break for final exams, the Crimson can certainly contend for the top with prohibitive favorite Penn. They have a dynamic duo inside of Stehle and junior center Brian Cusworth, easily the best frontcourt in the Ivy League. If Housman can continue to get better while running the show, and Goffredo continues his improvement as the perimeter go-to guy, the Crimson will have a formidable offense.
