Monday News and Notes for January 16th

For the team's second straight week since the January 3rd loss to Fordham, the Harvard men's basketball team remained ranked in the top 25 in the nation in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. The 15-2 Harvard Crimson received 61 points in this weeks poll, putting them in the 24th slot. The Crimson were just barely ranked ahead of the 15-3 Illinois Fighting Illini, and trailed Saint Mary's at 23rd.

Harvard remains among others receiving votes in the AP Top 25. The Crimson did slightly improve its points tally over last week, from 16 to 22. Harvard fell out of the AP Top 25 after the loss to Fordham.

According to CBSSports.com, Harvard's RPI fell for the second straight week, from 46th to 50th in the nation. Harvard has the second lowest strength of schedule (230) among the top 68 RPIs nationally, ahead of only the 66th-ranked Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (262). Harvard remains the only Ivy League school ranked in the top 68. Yale's RPI is second in the Ivy League, at 100; the Princeton Tigers are third, at 124.

Joe Lunardi's bracketology has Harvard unchanged as a 9 seed in the east, playing 8th seeded Purdue. Syracuse is Lunardi's top seed in that side of the bracket.

Harvard is coming off of a pair of non-conference wins last week over the Monmouth Hawks and the George Washington Colonials. With the win Saturday against George Washington, Harvard improved its home win streak to 23 games, the fifth-longest such run in the nation. For his effort on the weekend, Harvard senior forward Keith Wright was named Ivy League Player of the Week. Wright averaged 14.5 points and 11.5 rebounds per game on the week. Wright also had six blocked shots against Monmouth. The award is the co-captain's second Ivy League Player of the Week tab this season; Wright is also the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year.

This week, Harvard travels to Dartmouth on Saturday to take on the Big Green for the start of the all-Ivy League regular season schedule. Tip off is at 7 P.M. Charlie Hobbs and Scott Reed will have the call live on www.gocrimson.com.