CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With a lot of attention focused on the freshmen, it can be easy to lose sight of Harvard’s best player thus far. Jeremy Lin is, after all, a holdover from last season, and even from the prior coaching staff. He’s a little different from the highly-touted newcomers on the roster.
But just as the freshmen show all the potential in the world, they have some growing pains as well. Lin has been through that already, and after starting to break out last season, is coming into his own in a big way thus far in his junior season.
“He’s the catalyst, and he’s been that way for us all season, and it doesn’t surprise me to see a stat line like this,” said head coach Tommy Amaker.
Amaker was referring to how Lin once again filled the stat sheet on Sunday. The junior guard scored a game-high 16 points, hauled down a game-high seven rebounds, handed out five assists (with just one turnover) and had four steals. He did it all in 25 minutes, the first time all season he has played under 30 minutes. It’s something he’s done all season, impacting a game in a variety of ways, and seemingly like few other players not just in the Ivy League, but also in the nation.
Sunday’s game notes mention that as of the most recent NCAA statistical release, Lin ranked in the top ten in the Ivy League in virtually every statistical category. The only noteworthy one where he is not is blocked shots, where he is 15th playing on the perimeter. He is one of five players nationally to rank among the top ten in his league in scoring (third), rebounding (ninth), assists (second) and steals (leads). Of those five players – the others are Marquis Hall (Lehigh, Patriot League), James Harden (Arizona State, Pac-10), Kaleo Kina (Navy, Patriot) and Ryan Thompson (Rider, MAAC) – Lin has the highest total ranking in the four aforementioned categories.
In fact, Lin has impacted games so well that he’s found a way to have a solid stat line even on an off-night. In the second game of the season at Colorado, he scored a season-low 11 points, but tied a career high with five steals and had four assists. Against Army, he had just one rebound and one assist, but scored 24 points and had five steals.
“He’s such an efficient player, he’s a basketball player – I’m not sure he has a position,” said Amaker, who has used him at both guard spots. “He’s a kid you want on the floor.”
There’s no reason to stop with the main stats. After Sunday’s game, Lin is shooting almost 52 percent from the floor, just under 49 percent from three-point range and over 84 percent from the line. That’s not bad for a guy who entered the season as a career 27.9 percent shooter from behind the arc and who slumped to 62 percent from the foul line after shooting nearly 82 percent as a freshman.
Lin made a conscious effort to improve his shooting over the summer, and it’s paying off. While his workouts taking a lot of shots were a big part of that, he can see one major difference from last season with it: confidence.
“Last year, I was so hesitant with the ball and I didn’t want to shoot the three, and now I’m more hunting for that shot,” said Lin. “I’m shooting with more confidence, and that makes a huge difference.”
Though he isn’t playing the point guard spot much, Lin wants to keep his turnovers down. That has been an issue at times in his career, even though he has more assists than turnovers, and this season that’s probably been about the only downer as he’s giving it away nearly four times per game, significantly higher than his career average. Given his improvement shooting the ball, he’s capable of cutting down on the turnovers.
With the Crimson also racked by frontcourt injuries, Lin will need to continue to be a jack-of-all-trades, at least for the foreseeable future. They’ll also need him to continue his defensive work, since that can go a long way toward keeping opponents from getting the ball inside. He fits perfectly into what they try to do. Amaker played and coached at Duke, and they are known for over-playing on defense. Watch Lin anticipate and read passing lanes, and you can see that it’s no accident that he’s having the season he’s having at that end.
“He has great instincts, he anticipates very well,” said Amaker. “We preach and teach that kind of defense, where we’re trying to deny and contest, as we call it. Jeremy fits into that very well for our system and our philosophy. His instincts and his ability to anticipate, you see that over and over again with his ability to go make a play on the defensive end.”
It’s not often that a guy who makes a team go is not the team’s point guard. Though he seems suited for the position, Lin has thrived wherever he has played, and for much of this season he has played off the ball. Even from that spot, he’s clearly the team’s most indispensable player.
“We feed off of Jeremy. There are so many little things he does that ignites our ballclub,” Amaker noted. “He’s the quickest one to any loose ball, and he can make plays that put other guys into position to do good things for our team.”
Though surrounded by young teammates, Lin says he hasn’t felt any extra responsibility. He feels like the freshmen are growing up quickly, and one can imagine that he has probably helped make them better along the way. No matter how good they get to be this season, the guard who isn’t a freshman looks like the one who will make the team go.
