Diminutive point guard Hill drives Harvard offense

The 1996 Ivy League Rookie of the Year hopes to enjoy the same success in college he experienced for DeMatha High. When Quakers freshman Michael Jordan steps onto the court Saturday night at Harvard, he will come up against a player who knows all about being a high-profile, first-year point guard. Crimson sophomore Tim Hill, last year's Ivy League Rookie of the Year, will be ready to show Jordan that he still has a lot to learn about playing basketball. Hill has had a strong, if not exceptional, sophomore season. After an impressive rookie year, he has been given control over the offensive flow of his team this season, playing nearly 40 minutes each and every night. His time on the court has translated into six assists a game -- second in the Ivy League -- and also one of the Ancient Eight's best assist-to-turnover ratios. "It's definitely a challenge to play nearly 40 minutes. It gets a little tiring," Hill said. "I definitely think that playing as much as I did last year really helped. As long as I'm contributing, then the minutes are a good thing." While Hill and Jordan are sure to square off directly for most of the night, Hill downplayed any sense of growing rivalry between them. With another two years left to play after this season, though, Ivy fans would benefit from friendly competition between these two young and talented point guards. In their first meeting, Harvard looked at Jordan as more of a shooting guard, which meant that Hill only guarded Jordan about half of the time. That night, Jordan and Hill both finished with 18 points, but Hill had five assist and no turnovers while Jordan's six assists were mitigated by five turnovers. With Jordan firmly planted as Penn's floor leader, defensive matchups should be different this time around. "I guess I'll be guarding him the whole time," Hill said. "He's obviously an excellent player and the top rookie, but I really haven't thought about it. The only correlation is that he is the probable Rookie of the Year." In addition to dishing the ball, Hill has also been given the freedom from coach Frank Sullivan to shoot more. These extra shots haven't all gone down, as noted by Hill's sub-40 percent field goal percentage and a three-point field goal percentage that barely hovers above 25 percent. The numbers, however, are brushed aside by Sullivan as being typical of a sophomore looking to be more aggressive on offense. "I think we've been trying to let him have a little more freedom generating shots," Sullivan said. "He's taken some quick shots while he's trying to settle in. He'll tell you he's disappointed with it, but it's a classic sophomore season." After watching Hill's first game against Penn at the Palestra earlier this year, one has to wonder why he shoots anything other than layups, given the ease with which he continually drove through the Quakers defense for easy scores. Hill's quickness off the dribble is one of his top assets and is what helps him free himself for his increasing number of outside jumpers. "He's that quick that he can keep people on their heels," Sullivan said. "He'll beat people off the dribble to drive to the basket which makes him able to have a pull-up game. He's similar to Matt Maloney in that way." Being compared to Maloney, or becoming locked into a rivalry with Jordan, shouldn't bother Hill, because he has faced tough foes since the start of his high school career at nationally-ranked Dematha Catholic High School in Maryland. Led by Hall of Fame coach Morgan Wooten, who has won more high school games than any coach in history, Hill's team finished in the top 10 nationally and was the preseason No. 1 team in the country his senior season. With seven seniors going on to play Division I college basketball the following season, Hill's high school team probably could have given Harvard a competitive game. "I had never thought about attending Harvard," Hill said. "Coming from a big-time high school, I was prepared to think about bigger basketball schools. In the long run this was a wise decision, and I'm really happy here." Hill hopes that he can transfer the tradition at his high school, at least in part, to Harvard, a school which has no basketball tradition and has a total of zero Ivy League titles. "Something I'm most proud of is that Harvard will have its first back-to-back winning seasons since World War II," Hill said. "I'm really happy that the program is going in the right direction. The goal is to win our first-ever Ivy League title." That title will not arrive this year, but Hill and his teammates have the opportunity to make up for their two most embarrassing losses of the season. Sullivan and Hill both expressed hope that their defense will improve over its first outing against Penn and Princeton. Calling the upcoming weekend "a real challenge for us," Hill's ability to move the ball and play intense defense against Jordan will be central to Harvard's success.

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