Team of the Year: Men's Basketball

With its third straight NCAA Tournament appearance and second consecutive trip to the third round, the 2013-2014 Harvard men’s basketball team (27-5, 13-1 Ivy) proved that Cinderella can wear the slipper twice.

The team bore the weight of expectations all season—if last year’s team was characterized by coach Tommy Amaker’s statement “We may not have had what we had, but we have enough,” this year’s team was known for an embarrassment of riches. Six different players were named to All-Ivy teams, while three-star recruits and potential All-Ivy talent populated the bench.

“They won because they had depth and could afford injuries,” said Yale coach James Jones after Harvard clinched the Ivy League title on his team’s home floor. “If [sophomore point guard] Siyani [Chambers] is injured, you have [co-captain] Brandyn [Curry] on the bench. How many teams have a first or second team All-Ivy guy on the bench?”

Last year’s team was good enough to get the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win, but also enough to raise the hype to unforeseen levels for Ivy League teams. Enough to garner preseason AP Top 25 votes and cause the team to be unanimously predicted to repeat as Ancient Eight champion. Enough, even, to be tapped by one ESPN analyst to make the Final Four.

The expectations were not without reason. After a year off, Harvard welcomed back senior forward Kyle Casey and Curry—both All-Ivy talents. The freshman class included top-100 recruit Zena Edosomwan, the first player of such status to choose Harvard. The team had lost only one senior—Christian Webster ’13—from the previous year’s squad, and he returned to the bench as an assistant coach.

The challenge with an abundance of riches was to find balance and define roles.

“We know how important it’s going to be for everyone to sacrifice something of themselves for the greater good,” Amaker said before the season.

The team was defined by its ability to share responsibilities early. In its first five games, four different players led the Crimson in scoring. Harvard rattled off four victories to start the season before its first setback, a 70-62 loss at Colorado in which the Crimson led by 12 at the break.

After the loss to the Buffs, Harvard would not lose again for nearly six weeks. Along the way, the Crimson swept Denver, Green Bay, and TCU to take home the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout title.

The team hit a bump in the road after the winning streak, dropping two of three for the only time all season with road losses to eventual national champion Connecticut and Florida Atlantic. After the FAU loss—the worst program defeat in the last three years—the team rallied for Ivy League play, running off five straight wins to begin the year.

Then came Yale. The Bulldogs came into Cambridge on Feb. 8 and broke the Crimson’s 20-game winning streak at Lavietes Pavilion with a 74-67 victory that evened their record with that of Harvard atop the Ivy League.

“I know this group, and we will respond,” Curry said afterwards.

Indeed, the team emerged from the Yale loss with a renewed sense of urgency. It won in double-overtime at Columbia, overcoming 34 points from Lions junior Alex Rosenberg. A week later, it went to Princeton and did something it had not done in 25 years—win at Jadwin Gymnasium. Despite falling down by nine points early, the Harvard defense put the clamps on the Tiger offense, which shot just 34 percent, in a 12-point Crimson victory.

With the finish line in sight—all the Crimson needed to do to clinch its fourth straight Ivy League title was win out—Harvard played its best basketball of the season. On the season’s penultimate weekend, it crushed Cornell and Columbia by a combined 58 points at home. It clinched the title with a 12-point revenge victory over the Bulldogs in which it led buzzer-to-buzzer.

“I think we’ve shown that we have been the best team in our league,” Amaker said after beating Yale.

For its 26 wins, the Crimson was rewarded with a 12 seed by the NCAA Selection Committee, matched up with the fifth-seeded Cincinnati Bearcats. Led by senior guard Sean Kilpatrick, the Bearcats played a bruising defensive style of basketball. In the regular season, Cincinnati had taken out defending champion Louisville and cracked the nation’s top 10 before a late season swoon.

Harvard entered the matchup as a popular underdog. From Seth Davis to President Obama, many pundits had the Crimson as their trendy second-round upset pick. If the year before had been about being underestimated, this year was about the weight of expectations.

However, Harvard delivered once again with a 61-57 victory over the Bearcats. Chambers had five of his 11 points in the final two minutes, while Harvard set a program record with 27 wins.

“They’ve got real players,” said Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin after the game. “If it wasn’t for two slip-ups…you’re talking about a team that would have been 30-0.”

The Crimson’s season would end in the next round, however, at the hands of Michigan State. The No. 4-seeded Spartans were a popular pick to win it all and showed it in the first half, jumping out to a 12-point lead behind a flurry of transition points from junior forward Branden Dawson.

In the second half, the Crimson went small—with four guards surrounding junior forward Steve Moundou-Missi inside—to kickstart a 19-3 run that gave Harvard its only lead of the game, 62-60, with seven minutes to go. However, Michigan State would nail threes on three of its next five possessions to take an eight-point lead. Harvard was never closer than four the rest of the way.

“I can’t say enough about our team and the effort [that] the guys...showed in the second half to make a run, to take the lead,” Amaker said after the game. “We have had an amazing season.… I’m proud of our program, proud of our team.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.