Women's Basketball 3/21/2023 11:44:00 AM

Women's Basketball to Host URI in WNIT Super Sixteen Thursday

Cambridge, Mass. - The Harvard Women's Basketball team will play host to URI in the WNIT Super Sixteen on Thursday, March 23 at 7 p.m. in Lavietes Pavilion. The Crimson's first ever appearance in a postseason third round will be streamed on ESPN3.

With any ticket purchase, you will be entered into a raffle to win an autographed ball. Students will also recieve free pizza with attendance while supplies last.

What to Know

• Harvard women's basketball opened the Carrie Moore era this season with seven nonconference wins and nine conference wins to go 16-10 in the regular season before moving to 19-11 with its win in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals and loss in the final, followed by wins in the first two rounds of the WNIT.

• The Crimson have advanced to the third round of the WNIT for the first time in Harvard history. This is the first time they have made the round of 16 in any women's basketball postseason tournament.

• Head Coach Carrie Moore is in year one after the retirement of Kathy Delaney-Smith, who was at the helm of the Crimson program for 40 years. Moore was named The Kathy Delaney-Smith Head Coach For Harvard Women's Basketball on April 6, 2022, and arrived in Cambridge after spending the 2021-22 season as an assistant coach at Michigan, helping the Wolverines to a 25-7 record and a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. Moore also had assistant-coaching stints at North Carolina, Princeton and Creighton.

• Harmoni Turner posted Harvard's second ever triple double since the first in 2003 and is the first ever with 20+ points in last Thursday's WNIT game against Towson. She scored 21 points, pulled down 10 rebounds and passed off 13 assists. This triple-double is the sixth in Ivy League history and in the WNIT. It is the first ever from an Ivy League athlete in a postseason tournament and the first in the WNIT since 2015. Of the six triple-doubles in the Ivy League, none have had more assists and points than Turner's. At UMass, she was just rebounds shy of another triple-double, posting a double-double with 15 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds.

• So far in the WNIT, Harvard has scored the most they have all season with 103 points against Towson and 89 at UMass. They also set a season high in assists with 26 vs. Towson and tied the metric with 26 once again at UMass.

• The Crimson had six players in double digits in their 103-point game last Thursday for the first time since Feb. 2018. This was led by Lola Mullaney with 22 points, followed by Turner (21), McKenzie Forbes (14), Katie Krupa (14), Maggie McCarthy (12) and Saniyah Glenn-Bello (12). This was the first time since Feb. 2019 the Crimson hit triple digits.

• Turner was named to the All-Ivy First Team while Mullaney earned Second Team Honors and Elena Rodriguez received All-Ivy Honorable Mention status.

• Mullaney hit the 1000 career points benchmark against Yale on Feb. 3, surpassing the mark as she made a shot from three.

• Harvard won their first Ivy Madness tournament game this season with a 72-65 OT victory over Columbia. They have now made an appearance in all five Ivy League Tournaments since the 2016-17 season and made it to the Championship game for the first time ever after reaching the semifinals in each of its previous four appearances (2017, 2018, 2019, 2022).

• The Crimson are making their tenth appearance in the WNIT in 2023, with nine others spanning 2009-2019. In Harvard's most recent WNIT berth, they opened the tournament with a win over Drexel, 69-56, then fell to Georgetown in the second round, 70-65.

• Harvard is meeting URI for the second time this season and the 21st in series history, one in which Harvard leads 11-9. The Crimson won their first game of the season over URI 88-74 and will look to pick up another on Thursday.

• With a win over URI, Harvard will advance to the fourth round of the WNIT for the first time in team history, also the first time they will ever make it to a round of eight in a postseason tournament.