The Asian NCAA Star: Jeremy Lin of Harvard University

[anthoang2]

Jeremy Lin was originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Was a star high school basketball player. Now plays for Harvard.

Lin Nears Triple-Double In Victory (link)
Crimson stays hot with win over Mercer in Amaker's home debut
Published On Sunday, November 18, 2007 11:42 PM
By KEVIN C. REYES
Crimson Staff Writer

New Harvard men’s basketball coach Tommy Amaker made his Lavietes Pavilion debut on Friday night, but that wasn’t the big story.

The Crimson’s resounding 91-73 victory over Mercer was.

With a balanced offensive showing, Harvard (2-2) knocked off the Bears (1-2), a squad just six days removed from a 15-point victory over then-No. 18 USC in Los Angeles, in front of 1,676 at Lavietes.

Four of five starters scored in double figures while the fifth, sophomore forward Pat Magnarelli, pulled down 12 rebounds and notched five blocks.

Sophomore guard Jeremy Lin led the way with 23 points, his third straight career high, while approaching a triple-double with nine assists and nine rebounds in the win.

"He’s a hard-charging, explosive player," Amaker said of Lin. "He’s fearless, and a lot of times, he can go make a play that people don’t expect him to make—hooking rebounds, making shots, creating his offense."

Mercer took its first lead since the early minutes midway through the second half. But the Crimson became energized by the multitude of Harvard hockey fans that streamed into Lavietes following the men’s hockey game against Cornell. With the bleachers nearly full, the Crimson exploded on a 30-8 run to break open the ballgame and hand the Bears their second defeat of the young season.

"Especially in the last two years, when teams catch up with us like that, it’s usually a dogfight until the end," junior guard Drew Housman said. "That shows a lot about this team’s resolve."

The run began with a 10-0 Crimson spurt, including two key steals by sophomore guard Dan McGeary, who also hit two three-pointers en route to eight points, which led to easy buckets.

Harvard continued to apply the pressure, extending its lead to 13 at 78-65.

After a missed layup by Mercer guard James Florence—the Bears’ leading scorer coming into the game who finished with nine points on 3-for-18 shooting—Crimson guard Andrew Pusar chased down the rebound in the corner. Pusar made an outlet pass to Magnarelli, who found Housman running alongside junior Evan Harris at midcourt.

With no defenders between them and the basket, Housman handed it off to Harris for a two-handed power jam and a 15-point lead with less than four minutes remaining. Harris finished with 16 points and nine rebounds.

"I think our big guys especially did a good job of sprinting the floor, getting layups, dunks, those momentum builders, those fast-break layups" Housman said. "That really helped us out."

If that was the dagger, Lin’s three-pointer as the shot clock expired with 1:36 remaining to give the Crimson an 89-68 edge was the nail in the coffin, capping off the big nine-minute run.

"I can’t remember scoring that many points in such a short time," Housman said.

In an up-tempo battle with both squads pushing the ball up the floor, the teams traded leads in the early going. When most of the Harvard starters took a much-needed rest just six minutes in, the bench opened up the game’s first big lead, taking a 21-14 advantage. Freshman Adam Demuyakor notched all of his six points in the first half.

"We need players to be able to rotate through, to have fresh bodies," Amaker said. "So the bench is going to be critical and I thought that they did a nice job, especially in the first half."

"Everyone [on the bench] came in and hit big shots—I think they even pushed the lead out," Housman said. "There wasn’t a drop off at all."

Mercer managed to tie the score at 31 with less than five minutes remaining in the half, but from there, Harvard regained the momentum with an 11-3 run entering halftime, capped off by a jumper by Lin at the buzzer.

"I thought it was a huge lift for us—just a heads-up play," Amaker said. "I saw him look up and realize how much time was left. He knew he had enough time...to put it on the floor once, maybe twice, and get a clean look."

"I got lucky in a lot of different ways," Lin said. "But I was able to get a semi-open look."

The teams traded baskets coming out of the break, but with the Crimson leading at 54-46, Bears forward Calvin Henry, who led the Mercer attack with 14, made two layups and a three-pointer in a two-minute stretch to get the Bears within a point.

As it did in its win over Northwestern State last Sunday, Harvard shared the ball well, tallying 23 assists as a team, leading to easy shots and a 53.6 field-goal percentage.

"Teamwork’s a big thing for us because we have so many guys who can create," Lin said. "Basically, if we move the ball enough, we’ll get exactly what we want, and that’s pretty much what happened tonight."

 

[ankle breaker2]

what is he taking up in harvard? bachelor of laws?

 

[jxuusa2]

Oh wow, I remember reading about this kid when he was a senior in High school. Good for him, being at Harvard and all. He didn't end up in a bad place.

 

[kempmail2]

He isn't a chinese.that is the question.

 

[Prizmatic2]

Isn't Jeremy Lin the leading scorer for his Harvard team? I think he's the best player they have actually

 

[kerouac822]

... Harvard's Jeremy Lin just dropped 30 on Holy Cross this evening. Dude's averaging 19 points 5 assists so far. Could be Ivy League Player of the Year.

 

[Prizmatic2]

Please put Jeremy lin on the CNT.....

 

[DarknessFalls2]

6-2 PG Jeremy Lin of Harvard Crimson (NCAA)

6-2 PG Jeremy Lin of Harvard Crimson (NCAA)

Cambridge, Mass. – Harvard sophomore guard Jeremy Lin (Palo Alto, Calif.) has been named the Ivy League Player of the Week in an announcement from the league office Monday afternoon. Also named to the Honor Roll was senior Brad Unger (Boyertown, Pa.).

Lin averaged 20.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.5 steals and 1.5 blocks over the weekend while shooting 61 percent from the floor (17-28 FG). The sophomore guard scored on a layup with 9.1 seconds in regulation against Princeton to send the game into overtime and finished with 20 points and seven rebounds against the Tigers. He added 21 points, six boards, four assists and three steals against Penn. Lin was also named the Harvard COOP Athlete of the Week earlier in the day.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...w.bg?articleid=1134991&srvc=sports&position=2

“What more can you say about Jeremy Lin?” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “We think he’s one of the better players in our league, if not the best player. He’s been showing that the way he’s been working and the way he’s been playing.”

Lin was at his best in crunch time, scoring 19 points in the second half, including seven straight to push a one-point lead to a comfortable 60-52 advantage for Harvard (2-1) with 3:47 remaining

Jeremy Lin scored 26 points, had eight rebounds, six assists and four steals as Harvard downed Colgate, 67-64, in a nonleague road game at Cotterell Court Saturday afternoon.

​

 

[sinobball2]

Clearly he's one of the best American-born Chinese players ever. Ivy League isn't the best competition, but those stats are rather damn good. The question is where will he play once he graduate? Being from Harvard there is also a chance that he will choose a career other than basketball but with those stats it's conceivable he can find a very good offer in basketball overseas. Where will he play? I once read that his Mandarin is rather poor, but China, Taiwan or even Japan are some good possibilities, if not Europe or Australia. I guess we will see.

 

[DarknessFalls2]

Clearly he's one of the best American-born Chinese players ever. Ivy League isn't the best competition, but those stats are rather damn good. The question is where will he play once he graduate? Being from Harvard there is also a chance that he will choose a career other than basketball but with those stats it's conceivable he can find a very good offer in basketball overseas. Where will he play? I once read that his Mandarin is rather poor, but China, Taiwan or even Japan are some good possibilities, if not Europe or Australia. I guess we will see.

My best guess is he'll make himself eligible for the NBA draft. If he shows any kind of talent during camp workouts, he'll see some time in the Summer Pro League and if he does not make a NBA team...maybe he can make a D-League team.

Jeremy Lin can definitley play in the CBA and I wouldn't be surprised if he ultimatley chose to play there and became a Superstar. Not to mention if he really likes China, he could always find a way to play for the Chinese National Team.

 

[sime0n2]

I thought this was never going to happen, but he's putting up pretty good stats in the ivy league and he could potentially play for China. Is he Taiwanese or Chinese?

 

[DarknessFalls2]

I thought this was never going to happen, but he's putting up pretty good stats in the ivy league and he could potentially play for China. Is he Taiwanese or Chinese?

Well Jeremy Lin is from Palo Alto, CA and holds US Citizenship. As for his parents, I'm not sure if they are from China or Taiwan.

If somehow the Chinese Team can get both Jeremy Lin and Joe Alexnader on the National Team.

We could potentially be seeing a lineup of:

Yao Ming
Yi
Joe Alexander
Sun Yue
Jeremy Lin

 

[kerouac822]

Speaking of Ivy League players, I wonder where Ibrahim Jaaber (Penn) and Brian Cusworth (Harvard) are playing now. I do know for a fact that former Harvard center Brian Zigafoos is considering playing for the Thailand NT.

 

[rikhardur2]

Speaking of Ivy League players, I wonder where Ibrahim Jaaber (Penn) and Brian Cusworth (Harvard) are playing now.

Roma and makes part of the Bulgarian NT

 

[stuart2]

Cool, I've been looking for a video of Justin Lin playing.

Currently, Lin is leading the Crimson in points, assists, steals and is second on the team in rebounds. A recent writeup about Asian-Americans, as well as Lin, and the discrimination they have to deal with on every level can be found: http://www.interbasket.net/news/626...ketball-players-struggle-with-discrimination/

Cheers, Stuart

 

[nardy2]

Asian-American Basketball Players struggle with Discrimination

Asian-American Basketball Players struggle with Discrimination

Asian-American Basketball Players struggle with Discrimination

The San Francisco Chronicle featured a great article on Asian-American basketball players and how negative perceptions of their athletic ability, racial stereotypes, and ignorant fan comments have affected them at every level of the game.

The piece features quotes from past players like Rex Walters and current players like Justin Lin, a star Asian-American player from Palo Alto, California who is now the starting point for Harvard. Lin who leads the Crimson in points, steals and assists and is second on the team in rebounds had to fight his way into Division I basketball despite having a very successful high-school career, in part because of the preconceived notions that follow Asian athletes in the United States:

After Palo Alto High won the Division II state title in 2006, Lin’s senior season, he was named first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year. He was The Chronicle’s Metro Player of the Year.

Considering those honors and his senior stats - 15.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and five steals - Lin thought he’d get at least a few Division I scholarship offers. He got none.

“I do think (my ethnicity) did affect the way coaches recruited me. I think if I were a different race, I would’ve been treated differently.”

And now Lin has to deal with ignorance and insensitive comments normally reserved for a different era: “I hear everything: ‘Go back to China. Orchestra is on the other side of campus. Open up your eyes,’ ” Lin said. “They’re yelling at me before, during and after. I’m an easy target because I’m Asian. Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, but it’s part of the game. It’s a sport for white and black people,” Lin continued. “You don’t get respect for being an Asian American basketball player in the U.S.”


The piece also follows other Asian-American basketball players and coaches: Kelvin Kim, the starting point guard for UC San Diego, Erik Spoelstra, the head coach of the Miami Heat, and Seattle Pacific’s head coach Jeff Hironaka, Blake Wallace (USF), Bobby Nash (Hawaii), and Derrick Low (Washington State).

And perhaps the most-famous and definitely the most successful Asian-American hooper is Rex Walters, however, I don’t think many people are aware that Rex Walters is half-Asian. The former Kansas standout and NBA player looks like every other Kansas player that ever put on a Jayhawk jersey, but it was never common knowledge that his mother is Japanese and his father is Caucasian.

Walters led the Kansas Jayhawks in scoring in both his junior (1991-92) and senior (92-93) campaigns. During his tenure, KU combined to go 56-12 overall, winning back-to-back Big Eight titles and reaching the 1993 Final Four. Walters was named to the All-Big Eight team both seasons and was Big Eight Male Athlete of the Year as a senior in 1993.

Walters was drafted 16th overall in the 1993 NBA Draft, played eight years in the NBA, and is now coaching the University of San Francisco. Rex Walters is the only Asian American men’s basketball head coach in Division I.

 

[nardy2]

Asian Americans remain rare in men's college basketball
Bryan Chu, Special to The Chronicle
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

(12-15) 21:03 PST -- Jeremy Lin has seen it and heard it.

Too short. Too skinny. Picked last. Asian.

Those tags stick to Lin wherever he goes, even as the starting point guard for Harvard's basketball team.

"It's a sport for white and black people," Lin said. "You don't get respect for being an Asian American basketball player in the U.S."

Although the game is brimming in popularity among Asian American youth - there are Asian leagues, club teams like the San Jose Ninjas and San Jose Zebras, and packed courts outside schools, churches and temples - Lin practically is alone.

Of 4,814 Division I men's basketball players in 2006-07, there were 19 Asian Americans (including Pacific Islanders and ethnically mixed), according to the most recent NCAA Student-Athlete Race and Ethnicity Report. That's 0.4 percent.

Players, coaches and sociologists cite stereotypes and cultural factors as reasons that percentage might not rise very much in the foreseeable future. At the same time, there are players and coaches making inroads to mainstream, high-profile basketball, and there's a feeling of pioneer spirit among them.

"Especially now that there are lots of Asian Americans growing up and playing, I have to try to hold my own in college," Lin said. "It's definitely motivational and it gives me a chip on my shoulder."

Lin, who leads the Crimson (4-4) in points, steals and assists and is second in rebounds, is one of the best Asian American basketball players to come from the Bay Area.

After Palo Alto High won the Division II state title in 2006, Lin's senior season, he was named first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year. He was The Chronicle's Metro Player of the Year. Considering those honors and his senior stats - 15.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and five steals - Lin thought he'd get at least a few Division I scholarship offers.

He got none.

"I'm not saying top-5 state automatically gets you offers," Lin said, "but I do think (my ethnicity) did affect the way coaches recruited me. I think if I were a different race, I would've been treated differently."

At Harvard, the 6-foot-3 junior has faced harsh conditions on the road.

"I hear everything: 'Go back to China. Orchestra is on the other side of campus. Open up your eyes,' " Lin said. "They're yelling at me before, during and after. I'm an easy target because I'm Asian. Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, but it's part of the game."

Kelvin Kim, who transferred from UCLA and now is the starting point guard for UC San Diego, sees it in his everyday encounters with classmates.

"No one expects me to be a basketball player," said Kim, who is from Lake Forest (Orange County).

Kirk Kim went to Salesian High in Richmond and walked on at Cal in the late '90s. He said, "Automatically, playing - especially in the inner city - you get no respect being Asian."

Thin coaching ranks
Coaches face similar hurdles.

Seattle Pacific's Jeff Hironaka is considered the only current Asian American Division II head coach. He has 28 years of coaching experience and an 121-59 record in six-plus seasons as the Falcons' head coach. As an assistant, he helped them to at least a share of six conference championships and a national semifinal appearance in 2000.

Hironaka has interviewed in vain for Division I jobs.

"I was told they needed to hire an African American, and another school said they needed to hire a Caucasian," Hironaka said. "I'm not one or the other, so then I'm out.

"I understand assistant coaches you have to recruit - most (players) are Caucasian - so they ask, 'What can you help us do? Recruit Asians?' "

Hironaka continued: "You don't want to call it discrimination, but it's a discrimination kind of scenario. Sometimes you have to accept the reality of it. It's a tough barrier to crack."

Rex Walters, now in his first season as head coach at USF, is considered the only Asian American Division I men's basketball head coach. On his staff is assistant coach Danny Yoshikawa, a Japanese American who was conference player of the year at UC Davis in 1996.

"We've slowly, steadily grown," said Yoshikawa of Asian Americans breaking into the game. "I would've never seen two (Asian Americans) at USF. I just think that those kinds of things just take place over time.

"It's more getting to the point where people are going to hire guys - maybe it's because they're getting over the stigmas - because they are doing a good job."

One case in point is the Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra. Spoelstra, who played at the University of Portland, this year became the first Filipino American head coach in the NBA.

Though Lin and Kelvin Kim are starting in college, getting to the NBA is a longshot for almost everyone. Given the tiny pool of Asian Americans in the college game, the chance of a player making it to the top is small indeed.

Walters was a rare exception.

A standout at Kansas, Walters, who is hapa (his mother, Yoko, is Japanese and his father, Monte, is Caucasian), was taken 16th in the 1993 NBA draft, one of the first Asian Americans to make it to the pros. He spent eight seasons in the league.

Walters not optimistic
Now, from his point of view as a recruiter, Walters thinks youth trends are reducing the crop of potential Asian American players.

"I wanted to be a basketball player and I invested all my time into that," Walters said. "It's a totally different thinking now. You see kids spending time playing PlayStation 3 and that's time lost in the gym.

"When I was growing up, there were lots of good Asian American basketball players. I haven't seen those same types (while recruiting)."

Some other recent examples of Asian Americans in basketball: Blake Wallace is a junior forward at USF; Bobby Nash, a swingman at Hawaii last season, signed with the Shiga Lakestars of Basketball Japan; and Derrick Low, the former Washington State guard, signed with the Sydney Spirit in Australia's National Basketball League.

Wallace and Nash are both 6-6, two examples that contradict stature stereotypes. And one prominent coach sees the mixing of all races as a factor in the future of Asian American players.

"Society has come to be interracial marriages, and because of that, you're seeing (Asian Americans) that are bigger and stronger," said Darren Matsubara, basketball consultant for adidas basketball and coach for the EBO/2K Sports AAU team. "There are going to be more players coming up now."

However, the number of Asian Americans on prominent teams remains disproportionately low.

In the NCAA's eight-year ethnic-background survey, the smallest total of Asian Americans in Division I men's basketball was 10 (2003-04) and the largest was 27 (2005-06).

Family priorities
"I do think it's startling," said Jere Takahashi, a sociologist in Asian American Studies at Cal. "At the same time, I found talking to student-athletes ... (that) families don't emphasize sports; they put emphasis on academics.

"Whether coming from an immigrant family or a family of three or four generations, (schoolwork) becomes the interest of parents."

Professor Henry Yu, who taught Asian American studies at UCLA for 14 years and is now at the University of British Columbia, said people often categorize Asians as being too short as the reason why there aren't more players in the game. That's not the case.

Yu offers two factors why the odds are against Asian Americans.

The first is Asian American families putting pressure on young males to earn a paycheck, which is very difficult to do as an athlete.

"There's a reason why the Asian athletes are coming from overseas," Yu said. "If you're growing up in North America, there are family values and pressures to become a good husband. There's a sense of family ideology, and dreaming to be a professional athlete is not a good idea. It's frowned upon."

The second factor is the difficulty for Asian Americans to break into established sports networks like into the AAU web, college programs and the coaching scene.

"Those networks are very strong and often are racial," Yu said. "That's why it's so hard for blacks to get into coaching.

"That force has slowed down African Americans and Latinos up until 30 years ago. Hispanic players are now the largest minority playing baseball. It took a lot for the dam to break, but I don't see it breaking for Asian Americans."

Matsubara, who played at Cal State Northridge, says players are fighting themselves.

"It really starts with the mind," Matsubara said. "Most Asian basketball players are defeated before they start. There's the stereotype that Asians don't play ball. Then you have people in the community being negative toward you ... so then you begin to think, 'Why pursue this?'

"In Asian basketball, if an individual can understand and accept going outside the box, then you'll start to see more players."

Yet Matsubara said in the 15 years he has been scouting players that it seems Asian Americans "have been discouraged and given up."

Lin and Kelvin Kim are in the position of being role models.

"(People) come up to me and let me know how much they look up to me and they ask me for advice," Kim said. "It makes me feel motivated that they're looking up to me, and the fact that I can be, like, that light to them basketball-wise, it motivates me to want to do that and be as successful as possible.

"I've had people from Korea hit me up on Facebook who were trying to play basketball, and people from Canada."

When it comes to role models, Lin and Kelvin Kim do look up to the NBA players from China, the Rockets' Yao Ming and the Nets' Yi Jianlian. Lin and Kim each wants to leave his own mark.

"I'm on my own mission, and there aren't many people who can relate to me," Lin said. "(My parents) try to tell me to plan ahead and they tell me basketball isn't going to feed you for the rest of your life.

"But I feel like I have something to prove to everyone out there. In a sense, I'm trying to represent Asian Americans on the basketball court and I'm trying to be the best player and reach my potential."

By the numbers
Number of Asian Americans in NCAA men's college basketball, according to the NCAA:

Year DI DII DIII
1999-00 15 17 45
2000-01 12 18 54
2001-02 11 19 48
2002-03 11 20 54
2003-04 10 27 53
2004-05 20 31 46
2005-06 27 27 61
2006-07 19 35 38

Meanwhile:

From 1999 to 2007, the number of Asian American Division I women's basketball players has gone up in six years. In 2005-06, there were 76, the most ever recorded.

Bryan Chu, a former Chronicle staff writer, is on staff at the San Antonio Express-News. E-mail comments on this article to letterstogreen@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Kelvin Kim, who starts at guard for UC San Diego, said, "No one expects me to be a
basketball player." (Jimmy Gekas / Sideline Studios)

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is the first Filipino American to reach the top of the NBA's
coaching ladder. (Douglas C. Pizac / AP)

USF coach Rex Walters whose mother is Japanese is one of the few Asian Americans to
have played in the NBA. (Matt Cilley / AP)

Jeremy Lin thinks race was a factor in his not being more heavily recruited out of Palo Alto
High. (Brant Ward / The Chronicle)

 

[worldbasketball2]

It is a matter of time before Asian players become more prominent, Basketball is witnessing biggest growth in Asia and heights of Asians are getting taller.

But a curiosity about Asia. In US where we are talking about, concept of Asia/Asian is different from our cocept of continental Asia. For them Asian means not actyally Continnetal Asia as we know it as Asians of Arabic, Iranian, Turkish or Caucasian Republics are hardly called Asians anymore...

On a related note closer home, I think we should do more ourselves in "Interbasket" in covering Asian basketball forums. I think they are far less popular than our European forums for example... Our OWN struggle against discrimination perhaps?

 

[kerouac822]

Cool, I've been looking for a video of Justin Lin playing.

Currently, Lin is leading the Crimson in points, assists, steals and is second on the team in rebounds. A recent writeup about Asian-Americans, as well as Lin, and the discrimination they have to deal with on every level can be found: http://www.interbasket.net/news/626...ketball-players-struggle-with-discrimination/

Cheers, Stuart

Jeremy Lin just scored 27 points in an upset victory over #24 Boston College tonight. This was the same BC team that won over North Carolina earlier this week

 

[SkyWalker2]

Jeremy Lin just scored 27 points in an upset victory over #24 Boston College tonight. This was the same BC team that won over North Carolina earlier this week

Add to that 6 steals and 5 assists. An all around game from Jeremy Lin.