Men's Basketball Appears in a Variety of Preseason Rankings

Just a week after Shabazz Napier and the UConn “Hungry” Huskies took home the 2014 NCAA men’s basketball championship, prognosticators have already begun looking towards next season. For the third straight year, the Harvard men’s basketball team has made a selection of preseason lists. The Back Page has a list of what everyone is saying about Harvard so far this year.

The Crimson received the most love from NBC Sports, which ranked the Crimson No. 13 in its Way-Too-Early Preseason Top 25. Harvard came in just after Wichita State, which won its first 35 games of the 2013-2014 season, and ahead of Florida, which lost to UConn in the Final Four.

Although Harvard’s NBC Sports ranking corresponds to an NCAA Tournament four-seed, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi ranked Harvard as a 12-seed, which would be the third time in four years that Harvard has entered The Dance in that position. Lunardi projects Harvard to play Iowa State in Seattle, Wash.

Lunardi’s ranking is consistent with the Preseason Top 25 of ESPN colleague Eamonn Brennan, who ranked Harvard just outside his top 25 as one of the “15 teams that may crack the list at some point before November.” Brennan’s assessment was largely consistent with that of CBS Sports, which ranked Harvard as the 26th-best team in the country.