George Washington Easily Defeats Harvard

By: Ethan Hennessy

Washington D.C.

Harvard began their two-game Washington, D.C., road trip Friday night at the Charles E. Smith Center against George Washington. Robert Hinton got things going for the Crimson by converting two of three free throws after he was fouled on a three-point attempt in front of the George Washington bench and knocked to the ground by Jean Aranguren.

Harvard pushed the pace early, getting two fastbreak scores in the first five minutes. Offensively, the Crimson were getting to their spots to get the shot selection they were looking for. George Washington took their first lead of the game at the 10:45 mark in the first half when Jean Aranguren sank two free throws to put the Revolutionaries up 20-19. A 6-0 run gave the Revolutionaries some confidence. Harvard’s shooting grew colder as the first half continued. The Crimson only found the bottom of the net once over a nearly seven-minute stretch. Robert Hinton finally connected with a layup off the glass. Chris Caputo said in the postgame that “When the defense was set we were able to protect the paint and get out to shooters.” Despite being down nine earlier, Harvard was battling in a hostile road environment. A pair of Crimson big men Frankie Mannino and Luca Ace-Nasteski, hustling after a missed George Washington free throw led to an extra-possession three-pointer by Hinton. Up five, GW head coach Chris Caputo called a timeout with 12.8 seconds before halftime to set his team up with a quality look at the basket. The quality look did not materialize as Aranguren tried to drive towards the hoop, but got cut off, reversing toward the free-throw line and settling for a fadeaway look over the Crimson center Ace-Nasteski. It didn’t matter, though, as the shot found the bottom of the net and the Revolutionaries’ faithful cheered as their team took a 40-33 lead into the locker room.

The Revolutionaries started hot out of the break; the exclamation point of a 9-4 run that forced a Tommy Amaker timeout was when Dylan James forcefully dunked the ball with two hands after running down the lane in transition and catching a pass from Aranguren. Three-point makes by GW on three consecutive offensive possessions put them up 62-43 nearly eight minutes into the second half. While Harvard looked like they could compete with George Washington in the first half, the second half was telling a different story. The rest of the game, Harvard could not slow down the George Washington offensive firepower. George Washington easily won 85-57, improving to 4-0 on the season. The Revolutionaries have won their games by an average of over 28 points per game with the closest margin of victory being 14 over the Hampton Pirates. When I asked Coach Caputo after the game how he balances getting the results he is looking for and keeping the guys’ confidence up with no overlooking anybody on the schedule he said, “we know that there are challenges ahead… You look at the back end of our non-conference and you look at teams like American and LIU picked to win their league… we have a lot of challenges ahead. We need to keep getting better. I think we have the type of guys that are ready for the challenges ahead.” George Washington concludes their five-game homestand against non-division-one Ferrum on Monday. Harvard will stay in the district and look to get back in the win column as they will take on the American Eagles Sunday afternoon at Bender Arena. If they can win that would be coach Tommy Amaker’s 500^th career win.