Harvard Wins Ivy Honors for Player of Week and Rookie of Week

Harvard basketball senior captain Damian Long of Spokane, Wash., has been named Ivy League Player of the Week for the period ending March 5, while freshman guard Elliott Prasse-Freeman of Mercer Island, Wash., has earned Ivy Rookie of the Week honors.

The duo helped lead the Crimson to a pair of road victories over the final weekend of the regular season. Harvard defeated Columbia, 61-59, on March 3, and followed the next night with a 74-60 victory at Cornell to finish 12-15 overall and 7-7 in the Ivy League. The League record was good for a third-place tie, putting Harvard in company with Pennsylvania and Princeton as the only schools to finish in the Ivy’s top half each of the last five seasons.

Against Columbia, Long set a school record by hitting a three-pointer in his 24th straight game. He finished the night with 18 points and added two steals, a rebound, and an assist. In the Cornell contest, Long erupted for a career-best 29 points (shooting 5-of-9 from three-point range) with three steals and three rebounds.

Long started all 27 games at small forward and was Harvard’s second-leading scorer, averaging 14.8 points per game. The 6-3 senior shot 42 percent from the floor, including 41.4 percent from three-point range, and also averaged 4.3 rebounds per game. He led the Ivy League with 72 three-pointers this season, second-most in Harvard history and just one shy of school record-holder Keith Webster ’87, who hit 73 in his senior campaign.

Prasse-Freeman offered a pair of strong efforts as well. He had 12 points, eight assists, and three steals in the win at Columbia, then followed with nine points, 10 assists, six steals, and a team-high six rebounds as the Crimson topped Cornell to sweep the season series from the Big Red. It was his fifth game with 10 or more assists this season.

The rookie point guard finished the year with 196 assists, the second-highest total ever by a Harvard player, while his 7.3 assists per game set a school record. He leads the Ivy League and is ranked in the top-10 nationally in assists. Prasse-Freeman, who scored at a 7.2 clip and averaged 5.0 rebounds per game, became just the second player at Harvard to post 100 rebounds and 100 assists in the same season.

Long is a 1996 graduate of Mead High School, where he lettered in basketball, football, and baseball. He was a First Team All-State selection as a senior after helping Mead to its second straight District title. He is concentrating in anthropology.

Prasse-Freeman graduated from Mercer Island High School last spring after lettering for four years in basketball and earning two All-State selections. He led his high school team to a pair of state championships and a cumulative four-year record of 91-9. He was the 1998-99 Easter Prep Scholar-Athlete of the Year.