PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Give Harvard credit for coming to play on Friday night and putting forth a good game. Brown has played Harvard tough, taking them to double overtime earlier this month, and the Bears don’t lack confidence playing against them. But Brown did a lot to hurt its own cause on Friday night in dropping a 65-47 decision, and head coach Mike Martin didn’t mince words.
“That was unacceptable from me on down tonight,” said the Brown mentor. “We have to be a lot better than we were tonight, and we will be going forward. Absolutely unacceptable performance from our team tonight.”
The simplest way to sum it up is that Brown just looked “off”. They didn’t look like themselves with the many unforced errors they had, and against Harvard that will kill many teams. In the first half, they turned the ball over 14 times, a big reason they were down 29-18 at the break despite shooting the same percentage as Harvard. A number of the turnovers were unforced, either from clearly bad decisions while not under duress or passes wildly off the mark to open men.
In large part because of the turnovers, Brown scored just five points in the first 15 minutes of the game. They finally came to life after that, scoring four points in the next minute and nine more before the half was up, but they dug too deep a hole to dig out of even if they played better after that.
“There’s absolutely no way we should play offense like we did tonight,” said Martin.
The Bears made a run to get within 39-33 in the second half, by the time the last media timeout rolled around they were down 53-41 and little they had done all evening suggested they had another run in them. They ran out of gas, and probably not just physically.
Even during that run, the Bears were not helping themselves. One time, Tucker Halpern settled for a very early jumper on what was at first a fast break. A few possessions later, when they still had momentum, the Bears were again on the run and saw Matt Sullivan settle for a three-pointer right in front of his bench just a few seconds into the possession. Both missed, and before you knew it Harvard got the momentum back and pushed the lead back to double digits. Brown never got closer than nine after that.
The Bears ended the night with 19 turnovers and shot 37 percent from the field, including 1-14 from long range. With those numbers, holding Harvard to a respectable 43.8 percent wasn’t nearly enough as the Crimson gave the ball away just six times. Harvard had a 23-7 edge in points off turnovers, and that enabled them to win comfortably despite shooting below 44 percent, including 2-12 from long range, and also missing 16 free throws.
Brown has competed all year long. This team seems to really play for Martin and the staff, after last year looking like a team that was in a malaise. Injuries certainly played a role, and the team was pretty beat up mentally. But last night was quite an aberration given that this team has come to play all year.
“Are they a better team than us? Absolutely,” said Martin. “Should we compete better than we did tonight? Absolutely. It’s unacceptable. We will get there, I’m 100 percent positive of that.”
Brown was never able to get anyone going offensively. Cedric Kuakumensah led them with 11 points and six rebounds before fouling out in just 18 minutes of play, and he also had four turnovers. While he has grown over the course of the season, you still see the freshman mistakes. Leading scorer Sullivan went 27 minutes before he finally scored and finished 2-7 on the evening, and Sean McGonagill had 10 points on 5-13 shooting and had one assist with six turnovers. Following a great effort at Harvard earlier this month, McGonagill has five assists and 19 turnovers in his last five games, and when that’s the case for your point guard, it’s tough to win.
Martin said he didn’t see Friday night’s effort coming from before the game. He felt they practiced well and were ready. In the end, Friday night should be an isolated event, even if the Bears lose more games the rest of the way. They haven’t lost often like they did against Harvard.
