Lin and Crimson come up big

Bryant, Broncos denied by Harvard

By Michael Vega, Globe Staff | January 3, 2009

Judging from the size of Santa Clara's starting lineup, which was anchored by senior center John Bryant, a 6-foot-11-inch, 275-pound behemoth, the Harvard basketball team seemed to be at an obvious disadvantage from the opening tap of last night's nonconference game at Lavietes Pavilion.

As far as Crimson coach Tommy Amaker was concerned, it wasn't the size of his players that concerned him as much as the size of the fight his team was prepared to put up against their visitors from the West Coast Conference.

"We were undersized, but we were very scrappy," Amaker said after Harvard (7-6) posted a 73-68 victory over Santa Clara (7- before a crowd of 499. "I really like that about our kids right now. We're really playing with a spirit and an energy on the defensive end and it becomes contagious. So, if one player isn't playing up to his capabilities, we have players who are stepping forward and picking up the pace."

Last night, it was Jeremy Lin, a 6-3 junior guard, and Doug Miller, a 6-7 junior forward, who rose to the occasion by combining for 32 points and eight rebounds. Lin, despite being hobbled by an ankle injury, led the way for Harvard with 17 points and nine assists to one turnover, while Miller, whose job it was to contend with Bryant, chipped in 15 points, 3 rebounds, and 1 blocked shot.

"Everybody came ready to play," said Lin, noting the contributions of Drew Housman, who scored 16 points, freshman Peter Boehm, who had 13 points, and Andrew Pusar, who drilled a trey in front of Harvard's bench that gave the Crimson some breathing room, 64-53. "I definitely think that this is the best team effort that we've had this year, and that's something to build on."

Freshman Kevin Foster led the Broncos with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 4 of 7 from the 3-point line, while Bryant, who was plagued by foul trouble, had 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots.

"It's really frustrating for us, because it's not the first time it's happened, but it's almost seemingly impossible to get a fair shake for John when he doesn't have equal size on the other end," said Santa Clara coach Kerry Keating. "I think this might be the first game he's ever played where I've coached that he's not shot a free throw, so that's disappointing."

But, as Keating pointed out, it had nothing to do with his team committing 20 turnovers, while Harvard had just six.

"All of us really valued the ball, especially at the end when they were pressing us a lot," Housman said. "But we kept our cool."

Harvard's lead grew to 12 points (20- when Miller converted a pretty backdoor feed from Lin into a reverse layup.

Bryant snapped the Broncos out of a scoring drought of 4:14 when he posted up Miller and converted a lefthanded jump-hook. Miller answered by combining with Lin on another pretty backdoor cut that made it 22-10.

"It was like you draw it up," Lin said.

Bryant threw down a rim-bending dunk that sparked a 13-8 run and enabled the Broncos to close within 30-23 on Foster's transition layup with 3:47 to go in the first half.

Santa Clara continued to pressure Harvard, converting 4 of 6 foul shots and getting a pretty finger roll from Australian forward Ben Dowdell to close to 31-29 at halftime.

After Santa Clara went up, 35-33, early in the second half, the Crimson went on a 14-2 run. The Broncos came back to pull within 54-50, but Harvard answered with a 10-3 run, capped by Pusar's trey.

"They're a big ball club, a big team, and a very good team," Amaker said. "So what do we have to do to offset that? Quickness, energy, scrappiness, being gritty, fighting, clawing, going after loose balls, blocking out, all the blue-collar kinds of things, and our kids did that.

"In order for us to be a successful team, we're going to have to be able to do that night in and night out."