Women's Basketball Travels to Princeton and Penn This Weekend

Brogan Berry ranks 12th in the nation in assists per game, with 6.1 (photo courtesy of Gil Talbot).

Game Notes

The Particulars
The Crimson heads south down 95 to meet first-place Princeton Friday night and Penn Saturday night.

A Shade of Crimson
The Harvard coaches and support staff will be wearing red on Friday night as part of the National Wear Red Day. Americans nationwide will wear red to show their support for women’s heart disease awareness.

On TV
Friday night's game at Princeton will air tape delayed on the Verizon Fios Cable System on channel Fios1 (stay tuned for more info).

Scouting the Crimson
The Crimson has won five of its last seven games and two straight heading into its second Ivy League weekend. Harvard has had six different players lead the team in scoring, with Markley pacing the team with six.

Markley leads the Crimson in scoring and rebounding with 14.9 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Brogan Berry is second in scoring with 13.0 ppg and first in assists with 6.2 per game. Harvard’s 70.0 ppg ranked second in the league entering this weekend. The Crimson led the league in free throw shooting with 75.8 percent, blocked shots with 4.7 per game and three-point field goals made with 7.5 per game.

Last Time Out
Christine Matera led four Crimson players in double figures with her game-high 16 points as Harvard defeated Cornell, 69-53. Matera was 5-for-12 from the field and 4-for-10 from beyond arc. Brogan Berry added 14 points and seven assists and Emma Markley put up 10 points and pulled down seven boards. Elle Hagedorn scored a career-high 12 points.

After a slow start for the Crimson offensively, Harvard gained moment late in the first and never looked back. Cornell tied the score twice in the second half, but the Crimson used nine straight scores to pull away. Harvard led by as many as 16.

Honored Again
Emma Markley was named the Ivy League Co-Player of the Week Monday. It was her fourth POWk selection of the year. Markley averaged 14.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.5 blocks, flirting with a triple-double in one game, leading the Crimson to two wins over Columbia and Cornell.

Markley scored a team-high 19 points (7-for-12 from the field), grabbed a game-high eight rebounds, blocked a season-high seven shots, handed out two assists and collected two steals in Harvard’s win over Columbia. She added 10 points, seven rebounds, two blocks an assist and a steal in the win over Cornell.

February Factoid
Harvard is 162-66 in the month of February under head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. The Crimson has gone undefeated in the second month of the year six times, with the most recent coming in 2007 (8-0).

Caught Stealing
Elle Hagedorn had seven steals in Harvard’s last two games doubling her total for the season to 14. Four players have 15 or more steals this season. Junior Jackie Alemany leads the team with 28.

Shooting Lights Out
Harvard shot a school-record 65.8 percent from the field against Columbia (Jan. 29), breaking the previous program record of 63.9 percent set against Central Connecticut in 2003. The Crimson shot 70.8 percent from the field in the second half against the Lions. It was the Crimson’s best shooting performance in a half since making 75 percent in the second half against Yale (March 7, 2009).

Creeping Up on the Top 10
Brogan Berry has 105 assists entering the weekend and is just 23 hand outs away from Harvard’s single season top 10 list. Jennifer Monti ’02 holds the single season record with 178.

Meeting the League Leader
Feb. 5 marks the second straight Friday Harvard’s opponent sits atop the Ivy League standings. Last week, the Crimson knocked off previously Ivy unbeaten Columbia. Princeton is the only unbeaten team in the league with a 3-0 mark.

Scouting the Tigers
Princeton, the winners of 10 straight games, is 15-2 on the season and 3-0 in Ivy League play. The Tigers lead the conference in scoring offense (71.8), scoring defense (52.5), scoring margin (+19.5), field goal percentage (45.2), field goal percentage defense (34.0), three-point field goal percentage (38.7), three-point field goal defense (29.8), rebounding offense (40.1), assists (15.1), steals (9.2) and turnover margin (+3.88).

Freshman Niveen Rasheed leads the team and is second in the league in scoring with 15.5 points per game. She is also the team’s top rebounder with 7.5 rpg. Lauren Edwards (13.1), Addie Micir (12.9) and Devona Allgood (10.4) all average double-digit scoring.

The Princeton Series
Harvard leads the all-time series with the Tigers, 37-27. The Crimson has won six in a row against Princeton and has not lost to the Tigers since Feb. 25, 2006.

Scouting the Quakers
Penn is 1-16 on the season and 0-3 in Ancient Eight contests this season. First-year head coach Mike McLaughlin and his squad enters the weekend having lost its last seven games. The Quakers lone win of the season came against St. Francis (N.Y.) at The Palestra Dec. 31.

Sarah Bucar leads the offense with 9.6 points per game, while Jess Knapp paces the team with 7.1 rebounds per game. Bucar and Caitlin Slover have started all 17 games for the Quakers.

Penn is shooting 30.4 percent from the field, 21.8 percent from beyond the arc and 63.3 percent from the free throw line. The Quakers average 45.6 ppg. and allow 61.1 ppg.

The Penn Series
Harvard has won 11 in a row against the Quakers and leads the series, 42-21. The Crimson is 18-11 against the Quakers at The Palestra.

On the Road Again
Harvard plays six of its next eight contests on the road. The Crimson travels to Princeton (Feb. 5) and Penn (Feb. 6) before returning home to face Yale (Feb. 12) and Brown (Feb. 13). Harvard is on the road for the next two weekends, equaling its longest string of games away from home this season.

Nationally Speaking
Emma Markley ranks 19th in the nation in blocks per game (2.5). Brogan Berry ranks 12th in the nation in assists per game (6.1) and seventh in assist/turnover ratio (2.5). Berry is 36th in free throw percentage (.851) and Christine Matera is 38th in three-point field goals per game (2.6).

Harvard is 13th in free throw shooting percentage (.758) and 19th in three-point field goal percentage (.377).

League Leaders (as of Jan. 31)
Brogan Berry leads the league in free throw shooting (.851), assist/turnover ratio (2.8) and assists (6.2). Emma Markley paces the conference in blocks per game (2.5).

The Offense
Harvard ranks second in the Ivy League in scoring offense with 70.0 points per game. The Crimson leads the Ancient Eight in free throw percentage (.758), blocked shots (4.8 per game) and three-point field goals (7.5 per game).

On the Bench
Kathy Delaney-Smith, the winningest coach in program history, is in her 28th season on the bench for the Crimson. Delaney-Smith, who has led the Crimson to 11 Ivy League titles, recorded her 400th career victory with a 68-47 win over Brown on March 7, 2008. She sports a 430-305 record 17 games into her 28th season

Assistant Coach Bri Fecteau is back for her seventh season, while Kelly Finley returns for her second. She served as a volunteer assistant in 2008-09. Todd Earl, another Colorado State graduate, joins the staff as a volunteer coach this season.