Cambridge, Mass. - The Harvard women's basketball team will meet the Columbia Lions for the fourth time this season on Sunday, March 26 at 4 p.m. in the WNIT Great 8. Columbia will host the fourth round of the tournament at Levien Gymnasium. The game will stream on ESPN3.
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 20-11 with its win in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals and loss in the final, followed by wins in the first three rounds of the WNIT.
• The Crimson have advanced to the fourth round of the WNIT for the first time in Harvard history. This is the first time they have made the round of 8 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.
• With her win over UMass, Moore became the winningest first-year head coach in Harvard history. With her win over URI, Harvard has their first 20-win season since 2016-17 and 13th 20-win season ever.
• Harmoni Turner posted Harvard's second ever triple double since the first in 2003 and is the first ever with 20+ points in the WNIT round one 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. She went on to be just two rebounds shy of another triple-double at UMass, 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 at UMass.
• The Crimson have had four or more players in double digits in each WNIT game. Most recently against URI, Lola Mullaney scored 19, Elena Rodriguez scored 16, Turner scored 15 and McKenzie Forbes scored 10. Against Towson, six players scored 10+ points for the first time since Feb. 2018.
• Turner was named to the All-Ivy First Team while Mullaney earned Second Team Honors and Rodriguez received All-Ivy Honorable Mention status.
• Mullaney hit the 1000 career points benchmark against Yale on Feb. 3, only the 22nd Crimson player to ever do so. She now has 1,158 points and sits 21st on the all-time list.
• Harvard's three postseason victories this season matches the program's total from its previous five appearances (3-5).
• 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 their 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 Ivy League competitor Columbia for the fourth time this season and 76th time in series history, one in which Harvard leads 65-10. The Lions won two regular season games this year but Harvard won the most recent matchup in the Ivy League semifinal game on March 10 in overtime 72-65.
• With a win over Columbia, Harvard will advance to the WNIT Fab 4 for the first time in team history, also the first time they will ever make it to a semifinal in a postseason tournament. A victory in the Great 8 would give Harvard its most wins in a season since 2016-17.
Up Next
With a win over Columbia, the Crimson will move on to the WNIT Fab 4 and face the winner of the Florida vs. Bowling Green matchup.
