Bill Kipouras
Erik Groszyk is a Harvard basketball reserve who didn't get to dress for the Crimson's improbable 82-70 victory over Boston College last week. But he sat behind his team's bench and enjoyed it every bit as much as if he were on the Conte Forum floor that night.
The Forum was virtually empty; not surprising, given the icy weather that blanketed the region last Wednesday. Plus, students were still on holiday break.
But the 21-year-old government major said it didn't surprise him that Harvard created national attention after recording the program's first-ever victory over a ranked men's basketball opponent — and one that had just beaten the country's No. 1 team, North Carolina, in Chapel Hill three days prior.
"I wasn't shocked; not at all," said Groszyk, a former Salem High star. "I had a lot of confidence in the team. We have players who have played against guys of their caliber and played at highly-rated high schools and for successful AAU teams. No way did I expect Harvard to be intimidated."
Obviously, the Crimson didn't suffer one iota of stage fright.
"The coach, Tommy Amaker, is trying to build a program that will gain national respect. A game like this will do it. It was a big win for him," Groszyk said.
He also recalled Amaker's encouraging words at Tuesday's practice. "He said there's no better time to play BC (then after the UNC conquest)," Groszyk recalled.
"You could see from BC's body language on the court that they were frustrated," he added. "There was some booing, and I thought I saw some bickering. But Harvard played an excellent game and had a good game plan against BC's offense. They run a screen-oriented offense and everyone we had did a good job against it. The easy way to explain it is that we gave them different lanes, forcing them not to use the screens and it disrupted their rhythm in the offense."
The fact Harvard led most of the way — by a big chunk at times — made the outcome less surprising. "We pretty much controlled it from the opening tap and were up by 15 at one point," Groszyk said.
At no time was Harvard's composure more obvious than when BC cut its deficit to seven points a couple of times late in the second half, but the Crimson held their ground.
Groszyk suffered a serious concussion against NYU in his sophomore year and doctors ruled out basketball after that, but he chose to return to the program this year (albeit after signing a waiver). He had dressed for three varsity games, but was bumped when some injured players returned.
