Harvard Opens Season Against MIT

Harvard has been playing MIT in men’s basketball season openers for a long time.

For example, the Crimson started its 1908 campaign with a 22-20 double-overtime win over the Engineers. But MIT got revenge on its cross-river rivals a year later with a 19-12 victory on Harvard’s campus.

By 1945, scores had increased a bit, and the Crimson got off to a strong start to its season by knocking off the Engineers, 42-21. A preview of that opener in The Crimson said the contest marked the “opening [of] what promises to be the best season for Harvard basketball since 1942-43.”

That prediction proved salient, as the 1945-46 Crimson finished 20-2 during the regular season and reached the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to Ohio State.

Sixty-six years later, Harvard has not been back to the Big Dance since.

But heading into 2011-12, it’s rather easy to make a prediction similar to the one The Crimson made just months after World War II had ended—this could be very well be the start of the greatest season in Harvard men’s basketball history.

And this time, it’s not just the school newspaper making that prediction.

Others have jumped on the Crimson bandwagon as well.

A year after winning the first Ivy League title in its history (the Ancient Eight had not yet been established in 1946), big things are expected from Harvard this year.

The squad was a near-unanimous pick to win the conference in the 2011 preseason poll, receiving 16 of 17 first-place votes (the other went to Yale). It is just the fourth time in Crimson history that the squad has received first-place preseason votes.

But it's not just the Ancient Eight where the Crimson is expected to shine; Harvard received two votes in the AP preseason poll as well. Putting the Crimson in the Top-25 may not be such a far stretch, considering Harvard finished 35th in the country in RPI last season and is expected to be even better this year.

“I think they’re going to dominate the Ivy League and have a chance to run the table,” said CBS college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman. “They’re going to be fun to watch. ... The pieces fit so well. Depending on their matchup, I could see them winning a game or two in the NCAA tournament."

Harvard is coming off the two winningest seasons in its long history. After going 21-8 in 2009-10, the Crimson improved to 23-7 last year, earning an at-large bid to the NIT only after missing out on March Madness when Princeton’s Doug Davis hit a game-winning jumper at the buzzer in the Ivy League playoff game.

But this year, Harvard wants to win the title outright, and it returns every key player from last year’s championship squad—plus the Ivy’s best freshman class—to help it do so.

The team runs through its big men, co-captain Keith Wright and junior forward Kyle Casey. Wright, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, has been named to the Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 Watch List and the Lou Henson All-America Team this preseason after averaging 14.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game in 2010.

“When we get the ball outside the perimeter, we’re looking inside to Keith,” says Oliver McNally, Wright’s co-captain. “He attracts so much attention, and I don’t think he gets enough credit; he’s an incredibly unselfish player.”

Casey, the 2009-10 Ivy Rookie of the Year, battled through a foot injury for most of last season but is fully healthy and ready to improve on a sophomore campaign in which he averaged 10.7 points and 6.0 rebounds per contest.

“Kyle’s competitive, he’s incredibly athletic, [and] he gives us a dimension that at times can be unique and different in our league,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker said.

Freshmen Steve Mondou-Missi and Kenyatta Smith, seven-foot sophomore Ugo Okam, and junior Jeff Georgatos provide frontcourt depth.

At the wings, junior Christian Webster and sophomore Laurent Rivard look to build on seasons where both scored in double figures (13.0 and 11.0 points per game respectively) and shot 40 percent from beyond the arc.

“Laurent’s one of our hardest workers,” Amaker said. “[And] he’s just an absolutely terrific shooter. ... He knows we believe in him, and just as important, he believes in himself and his teammates believe in him.”

Freshmen Jonah Travis and Wesley Saunders—a top-100 national recruit according to Rivals—will provide versatility off the bench.

In the backcourt, junior Brandyn Curry returns after leading the Ancient Eight with 5.9 assists per game in 2010-11, and McNally provides veteran leadership and a 93 percent free-throw percentage (second-best in the nation). Sophomore Matt Brown proved to be a valuable substitute at both positions as a rookie last season.

“Towards the end of last year, Brandyn was a monster,” McNally says. “[In workouts] he’s been looking really good, I think he worked on his shot. ... We think he’s going to lead us to some pretty big things this year.”

That squad faces the Engineers tonight at Lavietes Pavilion, where it went 14-0 last season and where the Crimson has won 17 in a row total, the 10th-longest current home winning streak in the country.

Harvard blew out MIT, 84-58, last season, in a game in which Wright, Casey, Webster, Rivard, and McNally all scored in double figures. The Crimson also dominated the Engineers, 88-61, in 2009.

But the Crimson would be unwise to overlook MIT, which is ranked 10th in the Division III Top-25 and returns its six top scorers from a year ago, including center Noel Hollingsworth, who is a preseason All-American for the defending NEWMAC champions. Junior Mitchell Kates averaged 15.6 points per game last season, while classmate Will Tashman averaged 14.1 and scored 19 against the Crimson.

The Engineers have reached the Division III NCAA Tournament in three straight seasons, while the Crimson is still looking to get to the Division I tournament for just the second time ever.

“We have a bitter taste in our mouths after how last year ended,” McNally says. “We won the Ivy title but didn’t get to the tournament. ... [So] it’s not all there, and we all just want to get there.”

-Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.