Crimson Acknowledge Friday's Importance

Image courtesy of Harvard University

-->

by Scott Reed
WHRB Sports

Following Saturday's win over Dartmouth, the Harvard Crimson this week will return to the road to face Yale on Friday in New Haven in a game that could go a long way towards deciding the Ivy title. Each team is 2-0 in Ivy play after sweeping home-and-home series with weaker league teams (Harvard with Dartmouth, Yale with Brown). The Bulldogs are considered by some to be the chief challengers to the favorite Crimson this season, as Yale was picked 2nd in the preseason poll along with Princeton, and any Ivy contender will say that although all league games are important, the potential of tagging a title challenger with a loss elevates the significance of a match-up like this.

"Obviously they're [Yale] a favorite, and with fourteen games and no league tournament, you can't drop games against any team, but against a team that you know, is favored to hopefully be finishing up at the top, then yeah [its important]," says Harvard senior guard and co-captain Oliver McNally. McNally also pointed to Harvard's recent frustration in Payne Whitney Gym as a motivating factor, saying "we've got to exorcise some demons in that arena." The Crimson lost two buzzer-beaters in New Haven last year, a 70-69 thriller to Yale and that heartbreaking neutral-site playoff match-up with Princeton.

Harvard coach Tommy Amaker also recognized the significance of the game Friday, although he cautioned that most of the Ivy schedule had yet to be played: "It could very well be viewed as maybe the first one of the first marquee or big games of the conference season," said Amaker of the Yale game, "[but] I think there are going to be many more."

And of course, its also a contest between Harvard and Yale, a rivalry that demands significance no matter the teams or the records. Amaker on the rivalry: "Even without the significance of ranking, and how Yale is playing, them knocking us off last year... its still Harvard-Yale, so even if we were coming in with winless records ...it would be a big game for us to suit up for and be excited to play and I'm sure they feel the same way." McNally added, "Its Harvard-Yale, so whetever sport its in, it holds a little more meaning."

Harvard has been in games like this before under Amaker, though never as the favorite. Two years ago the Crimson, undefeated in Ivy play, traveled to Ithaca for their first matchup with heavy league favorite Cornell. Harvard was overmatched, losing 86-50, and had to play catch-up to the Big Red the rest of the season. Last year, Harvard faced a similar situation in its matchup with the favored Princeton Tigers on the road. Princeton won that game in a close battle, but Harvard was able to win the rematch in Cambridge in the regular season finale to claim a share of the conference championship. This week, Harvard again faces a chance to get a step ahead of one of its main competitors - a win means a leg up on Yale, while a loss means that the Crimson start from behind in a race that, given the whims of the NCAA selection committee, there is usually no prize for finishing second.

McNally is looking forward to the challenge: "We'll be really hyped up and ready to go, but I mean hopefully we have a mature team that will come in as focused as we did against Dartmouth and for the other teams we play in the league."

Scott Reed is the play by play broadcaster for Harvard men's basketball on WHRB and GoCrimson.com. He may be found on Twitter at @ScottReedWHRB

Moundou-Missi fitting in at Harvard

Image courtesy of Harvard Athletics

by Scott Reed
WHRB Sports

In the midst of one of what is so far one of the most successful seasons in school history, the Harvard Crimson, though led by a talented corps of returning juniors and seniors, are also receiving strong contributions from a newcomer: freshman Steve Moundou-Missi, an athletic 6'-7" forward whose journey to Cambridge is as long as his game.

A valuable contributor for the Crimson on the court this season, Moundou-Missi has appeared in all of Harvard's seventeen games, and is second on the team behind Wesley Saunders in minutes played by a first-year. He also leads all Crimson freshman in scoring and had a team-high sixteen points in Harvard's last win, over George Washington on January 14th. Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker has made it known repeatedly that he is pleased with the forward's performance: during preseason workouts, Amaker identified Moundou-Missi as the "most consistent" member of the freshman class, and praise continued following his breakout performance against GWU: "We're thrilled to have the chance to coach [him]...he's an outstanding player."

Almost as remarkable as Moundou-Missi's impact on a deep Crimson team is his personal journey, which started in West Africa and continued in west-central Florida. He is a native of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a nation of 19 million people. Starting out, Moundou-Missi played a different kind of roundball: soccer. "Growing up, I didn't want to play basketball," he says, "but once I got to know it, I liked it."

The odds of Moundou-Missi finding his way to the basketball court would have been long if not for the influence of his parents, who each played the sport for the Cameroon national team in the 1980s. They brought him to the US in his teens, where he eventually ended up at Montverde Academy in central Florida, a college preparatory school known for both its international student body and its nationally-competitive men's basketball team, led by Kevin Sutton, incidentally now an assistant coach at George Washington. After Moundou-Missi led the way in Harvard's 69-48 victory over the Colonials, Sutton gushed about his former player:"I'm very proud of him," he said, "honestly, I think he can be a pro."

Moundou-Missi had a stellar high school career, where he also had the chance to play with other very talented players: thirteen of his teammates (including current Harvard sophomore Ugo Okam) in his three years there would go on play Division-I basketball, and the 2009-2010 Montverde team that included Moundou-Missi was ranked the fifth-best high school team in the United States by ESPN. His success at the high school level led to his courtship by several so-called "power conference" schools, including Iowa and Florida.

Moundou-Missi's decision to attend Harvard, however, was largely academically-motivated. "I am trying to be an engineer later in life...I love math, I love physics," he says. He won a national math competition while in high school and according to Coach Tommy Amaker, Harvard's partnership with MIT, in which a student enrolled at one university can take courses at the other, played an influential role in the forward's decision to come to Cambridge.

Moundou-Missi's matriculation at Harvard has already paid dividends for the Crimson, who head into the meat of their Ivy League schedule, and Amaker is excited about the potential of his freshman forward, both this season and beyond: "We're thrilled to have the chance to coach Steve...We were thrilled to have him decide on Harvard, because we knew he would be an outstanding player and an outstanding citizen here on campus."

'Twas the Night Before Sportsmas, 2011

Sportsmas begins tomorrow! Excitement is in the air!

The First Day of Sportsmas

What: Harvard women's basketball @ New Hampshire
When: Tuesday, December 6th, 7pm, coverage begins at 6:45
Coverage: 95.3FM in the Greater Boston Area (those not in the metro area that have in their heart the true meaning of Sportsmas can log on to whrb.org to listen)


And now, here's that WHRB original classic, The Night Before Sportsmas

Twas the night before Sportsmas, and all through the school,

not a sports team was stirring, not even men's crew.

The radios were placed, on their desktops with care,

In hopes that WHRB's coverage, soon would be there.

The students were nestled, all snug in their beds,

while visions of Crimson danced in their heads.

Before going to sleep, I and my buddy,

Had just settled down for a long winters study.

When out on the Yard there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the desk to see what was the matter.

I jumped up after hearing the noise coming at us,

Hoping it was the hockey team returning from practice.

Away to the window I flew like a dart,

Pushing aside Harvard pennants and art.

The moon reflecting in the dead of winter

Made the yard glow like inside the Bright Center,

When, what by my wondering eyes should be caught,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny mascots,

With a little old driver, a jolly good charmer,

I knew in a moment it must be John Harvard.

More rapid than track stars his mascots they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Tiger! Now, Bulldog! Now, Big Green and Lion!

On, Quaker! On Brown Bear! On, Big Red and Crimson!

To the end of the ice! to the end of the court!

Now play away! play away! play each in sport!

As a point guard jumps up for a rim shattering slam,

Or a goaltender who gets his team out of a jam

So up to the dorm-top the mascots they flew,

With the sleigh full of radios, and John Harvard too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard 'bove the roofbeam,

The skating and dribbling of each Ivy League team,

As I put on my Crimson hat, and was turning around,

Down the chimney John Harvard came with a bound.

He was really quite large, a great big old mass,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ice shavings and grass;

A bundle of radios he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- pure Crimson! his dimples how small!

His cheeks were like pucks, his nose like a ball!

His droll little mouth had a smile a bit loony,

And the beard of his chin was as white as home unis,

The stump of a pipe he held was immense,

And the smoke it encircled his head like good defense,

He was in a great mood, not at all mopey,

Because in his bag sat an Ivy league Trophy,

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old man,

And it seemed his entrance was all part of his plan;

A wink and a point to his championship rings

Soon let me know that he could do great things.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And tuned all the radios, then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to the teams gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,

"Happy Sportsmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Harvard Claims Improbable Championship with Best Performance of Year

by Scott Reed

WHRB Sports

My Opinion

It was a masterful effort by Harvard against an opponent that had made a habit of dashing Crimson hopes, and the team from Cambridge sits back atop the Ivy football throne, claiming its 14th league title with a 37-21 throttling of the Penn Quakers. The win, coupled with a 21-16 Brown loss to Dartmouth, gave Harvard its seventh outright Ivy title and first since 2007, a title that after a season-opening loss seemed unattainable two months ago.

The manner in which the Crimson won Saturday was, in a word, dominant. An offense that has put up historic numbers this season did its part (30 offensive points, 204 rushing yards), and the defense, which has had its poor showings this year, was sublime. It was, considering the opponent and the circumstances, Harvard's best defensive performance of the year - head coach Tim Murphy dubbed it "one of the best defensive performances [Harvard] has had in a long time." The Quakers were held to 219 total yards, their second-lowest output of the year, including a meager 24 net rushing yards on 30 attempts. Josue Ortiz, perhaps the most talented Ivy league footballer in 2011, led the way with ten tackles and two sacks.

Given Harvard's 24-7 victory over second-place Brown in September, Saturday's performance left no doubt (the upcoming finale against Yale notwithstanding) that Harvard is the best the Ivy League has to offer. Harvard scored 37 unanswered points and held Penn to seven through three and a half quarters. "We lost to a better team," said Al Bagnoli, Penn's longtime head coach, in a somewhat bitter postgame press conference.

It was, in short, the kind of game that made even the biggest Crimson critic question why they had ever doubted Harvard. Yet, there was a time when the scene that unfolded Saturday had seemed an improbable dream. Those who saw the Crimson walk off the field after a season-opening loss at Holy Cross (this columnist included) could not have imagined that the team that played so poorly in Worcester would go on to win 8 straight games in dominant fashion (average margin of victory: 22 points) and be able to wrap up the Ivy title even before heading to New Haven. The hopes of such a turnaround seemed even dimmer when the news broke that starting quarterback Collier Winters would be out several weeks due to injury. Yet that Harvard team, at times sans Winters, rebounded and has a chance to record one of the best seasons in school history.

Harvard's title is a result of contributions from a host of characters: Ortiz and the rest of the defensive line, who controlled the line of scrimmage in every Ivy contest; Winters, who performed better after returning from injury than he had in his collegiate career; junior backup quarterback Colton Chapple, who filled in admirably for Winters in four starts; the team leader, linebacker Alex Gedeon, of whom Murphy said "I don't know if we've ever had a better captain"; and of course, Murphy himself, who claimed his sixth Ivy title in the same year that he has become Harvard's winningest head coach.

Regardless of the outcome of the finale at the Yale Bowl, the win over Penn and subsequent Ivy title stand as remarkable. Long after the 2011 team plays its final game, it will be remembered for attaining a championship that, after loss and injury, had once seemed impossible.

Scott Reed is the play-by-play broadcaster for Harvard football on WHRB.

Day of Surprises Ends in Predictable Crimson Win

by Scott Reed
WHRB Sports
My Opinion

The October day in Ithaca was sunny and warm, a backup quarterback set records, and a movie star was in attendance - it was an odd, surreal game at Schoellkopf Field. Everything about the afternoon seemed atypical - everything except, of course, the outcome, as Harvard beat Cornell for the 10th time in their last eleven meetings.

The Ithaca day dawned radiant and, dare we say, almost hot, in a region known for its harsh winters and crisp autumns (This writer chooses to avoid upstate New York for this very reason). This pleasant surprise of a day was the backdrop for an unusually competitive Harvard-Cornell game and the best statistical performance by a Harvard quarterback in nine years.

The game was more competitive than Harvard-Cornell matchups of recent memory - the Crimson had won the last four games between the two with ease and had beaten the Big Red in nine of their past ten games. Saturday, however, Harvard found itself on the ropes for three quarters, as the Big Red offense, behind sophomore quarterback Jeff Matthews, kept pace with the Crimson every step of the way. Cornell set the tone early as they took the opening kickoff and drove 70 yards on three passing plays for the first score of the day. Matthews easily and quickly picked apart the Harvard secondary in a manner reminiscent of Holy Cross's Ryan Taggert in the Crimson's season opening loss. "It was an eye-opener that this was going to be a tough game," Harvard head coach Tim Murphy would say afterward of the drive. Although the Harvard offense would respond, Cornell would regain the lead 17-10 in the second quarter and 24-20 late in the third. It was not the kind of matchup between the two programs that Ivy League fans were used to seeing: the Crimson had romped by more than two touchdowns in each of their last four games with Cornell.

Of course, this team is not the Cornell of the last four years either, as the Big Red came in with a record of 2-1 and leading the league in total offense and total defense. That Cornell would challenge Harvard was not a surprise to the Crimson themselves, or at least to the coaching staff - a special meeting was called the Thursday before the game to address the importance of not looking past them. Saying that a team will take a game seriously is one thing, however, while doing it is another, and early on Harvard was surprised and given all it could handle.

Surprises occurred off the field as well on Saturday, as actor Bill Murray was spotted in attendance; Murray was shown several instances on the video board at Schoellkopf field and could be seen at times conversing with the Harvard band.

The most surprising storyline of the afternoon, however, and without a doubt the biggest story of the game, was the day recorded by Colton Chapple, Harvard's backup quarterback filling in for the injured Collier Winters for the third straight game. Chapple, a career second-stringer, ended the day with an eye-popping 414 yards through the air. That was the most passing yards recorded by a Harvard quarterback since Neil Rose threw for 443 at Dartmouth back in 2002. The nine year stretch between then and Saturday included the entire quarterbacking tenures of Ryan Fitzpatrick (now the starter for the Buffalo Bills) and Chris Pizzotti, two of the best signalcallers in Crimson history.

Could Chapple be better than those two? The opinion here is that he isn't anything close to Fiztpatrick or Rose in terms of raw talent, but that shouldn't take away from the outstanding day he had, a day that will go down in the Harvard history books. After the game, Chapple was quick to credit his wide receivers "We've got a lot of playmakers, and I was just trying to get the ball to them." Harvard does indeed have talent on the outside, and was bolstered by 100-yard receiving days from seniors Alex Sarkisian and Chris Lorditch. There were clear height mismatches that the Crimson were able to exploit, as Harvard's receivers often had six or eight inches of height on the Cornell cornerbacks. Yet, mismatches and talented wide receivers alone cannot account for Harvard's brilliant passing performance: there was something simply special about Chapple on Saturday.

In the end, though, a day full of surprises ended in a predictable final result, as Harvard continued its winning tendencies over Cornell. That Harvard was able to weather the storm from the Big Red and respond with 21 unanswered points is a testament not only to Chapple and the offense but to the coaching staff as well. And with the Crimson win, Harvard, which started 0-1 and now sits at 3-1 with two good options at the quarterback position, moves ahead to a future that looks much brighter than it did four weeks ago.

Scott Reed is the play-by-play announcer for Harvard football and men's basketball on WHRB.

Crimson Sluggish, Mistake-Prone in Loss to Holy Cross

by Scott Reed
WHRB Sports
My Opinion

Well, this wasn't the start to the season many Crimson had hoped for and expected, as Harvard opened 2011 with a 30-22 loss at Holy Cross. The Crimson looked like it still had some kinks to work out, recording -3 on the turnover differential and looking lost at times on pass defense. All had started well for Harvard, and it look like it would be smooth sailing after the Crimson grabbed a 14-3 lead, scoring on its two opening drives of the season - but that would prove to be the high point, as Holy Cross scored 27 straight points.

Following their first drive of the second quarter, which gave them that eleven point advantage, Harvard looked like a different team, surrendering over 300 yards through the air and struggling to move the ball on offense with the same consistency.

Still, there were some positives to take away for Crimson fans. The run defense was solid, allowing only 3.1 yards per carry, and junior quarterback Collier Winters, despite making a couple of costly mistakes (the 97 yard interception returned for a touchdown was a back-breaker), passed for 265 yards and completed more than 50% of his passes. And most importantly, there's this to be proud of for Harvard: the Crimson weren't truly out of the game until Winters threw the final interception with 15 seconds left on the clock. This team could have easily folded after Holy Cross went ahead 30-14, capping that run of 27 unanswered points, yet they battled back after scoring a touchdown of their own and getting the ball at the end with a chance to tie.

And things might certainly improve: we should not put too much stock in a season opener (remember last year's 34-6 shellacking of the Crusaders and the subsequent loss at Brown?), especially one where the opponent is playing its third game of the season. Junior sensation Treavor Scales will almost certainly improve at running back - eventual Ivy co-player of the year Gino Gordon only had 62 yards rushing against Holy Cross last year, albeit on 11 carries. And the pass defense will have to get better.

Yet all of that does not mean Harvard should feel rosy inside. "It's not a league game," head coach Tim Murphy deadpanned when asked for a positive from yesterday's game. Indeed, the loss will not count in Ivy standings. But, the truth is that Harvard cannot compete for an Ivy League title if it plays like this - more talented teams will be coming down the road in the form of the Brown Bears, the Penn Quakers, and the Yale Bulldogs. And perhaps as little as can be taken from this opening game, a lot will be revealed this coming weekend when Harvard hosts Brown. The Bears should be better than Holy Cross and almost certainly have a better player under center in the form of Kyle Newhall-Caballero. Brown, and the rest of the Ivy League, will provide ample test to these Crimson. Let us hope that by the end of the year the game yesterday will be seen as nothing more than a bumpy start on the way to a successful season.


Scott Reed is the play-by-play commentator for Harvard football and mens' basketball.

Crimson Clicks - September 1st, 2011

News, notes, and mentions of Harvard sports in the last couple of weeks.

The New York Times features an excellent article on Ivy League football, "Year of the Quarterback in the Ivy League. " Here is an excerpt mentioning Harvard signalcaller Collier Winters:

"The Harvard senior Collier Winters beat top college quarterbacks, including Andrew Luck of Stanford and Kellen Moore of Boise State, in a passing accuracy contest in July at the Manning Passing Academy, hosted by Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning."

The article also has some quotes from Harvard head coach Tim Murphy. From the paper:

“The 2011 season has a chance to be the most competitive in a long time,” Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said in a recent conference call with reporters. “I don’t think you can look at a single team in our league that doesn’t have an all-Ivy-caliber quarterback back. That’s something I’ve never seen in my 18 years in the league.”

The Gospel Herald, a global Chinese Christian news service, has a nice write-up of former Harvard basketball star and current Golden State Warrior Jeremy Lin's trip to Taiwan.

Canada's The Sports Network writes a story on former Harvard wide receiver and kick returner Marco Iannuzzi's attempts to play football professionally in the CFL for the British Columbia Lions. B.C.'s coach, Wally Buono, had this to say in the article about Iannuzzi:

"He's worked hard in practice...We're not afraid to put him in there. I think he has certain skill sets at this point that can help us. He's done a good job on teams, he has done a good job handling part of the return game. If he gets an opportunity to be a receiver I think he will do fine."

Here are Marco's comments about his experience at Harvard:

"Once that opportunity was thrown in my direction I thought I would be a fool not to pursue it to the fullest...I knew I was so close, I couldn't live the rest of my life thinking I just about got in."

New England Hockey Journal has a post about the newest assistant coach for the Harvard men's hockey team, Jerry Forton.


Until next time, Go Crimson!

Crimson Clicks, July 20th

News, notes, and mentions of Harvard sports in the past week...

Harvard featured prominently in the New York Times article about changes in Ivy League practice rules to curb the rate of concussions. From the Times:

"“I’m not sure there will be any dramatic changes, because the changes over the last few years for dealing with head hits have changed dramatically,” said Tim Murphy, the football coach at Harvard. “If we want young people to continue to fall in love with this great sport, we have to protect the athletes.”
Murphy said that reducing the amount of contact during the week will not only reduce the chance of head trauma, but also keep his players fresher on game days. Too much contact in practice can lead to diminishing returns, he said. Murphy added that he did not think that the stricter rules will have any impact on recruiting. "

Men's Hockey hires new assistant (USCHO) Albie O'Connell hired to coach defensemen and special teams after three years at Northeastern.

An incoming linebacker recruit gets glowing praise from a local paper (The Statesman). He's got high expectations. From the Statesman:

"Sheehan has already set a series of goals for his stay on the Cambridge, Mass., campus. He hopes to win 40 games with the Crimson, and he wants to find a way to change an ivy League rule that does not allow the league's football teams to participate in postseason games".

The ACC Sports Journal mentions Tommy Amaker in a conversation about replacements for Mike Krzyzweski at Duke. Here is the exerpt:

Tommy Amaker may have put himself back in the running with the masterful job he’s done at Harvard, which helps erase the memory of his failure at Michigan.
Amaker understands the daunting task that faces Krzyzewski’s successor.
“I don’t think anyone wants to replace Coach K,” he said recently, in an interview with GoDuke magazine. “Speaking for myself … every step of the way, I enjoy the process of building. Every place I’ve been, I think I’ve played a small role in leaving a mark. But every mark has been touched at Duke. He’s a legend, an icon.”

Drew Cannon of Basketball Prospectus has Keith Wright as an "honorable mention" when discussing the top 100 players in Division I.

Bonus Clicks:

Abby Wambach's sister talks about her sister playing for Harvard (Yahoo! Sports)

Manchester United comes by campus, visiting one of the least sports-savvy campuses in the least soccer-crazy nation in the world.

Until next time, Go Crimson!

Harvard Football to Make Two Appearences on Versus

The final two games of Harvard's 2011 football season will be nationally televised on the Versus network, the Ivy League announced last week. A national audience will see the Crimson's November 12th matchup with the Penn Quakers as well as its traditional season-ending contest with the Yale Bulldogs on November 19th. Both games will kickoff at 12noon. Of course, all Harvard football games are broadcast on WHRB 95.3FM in the greater Boston area and around the world at whrb.org.

This will be the fourth year in a row that Ivy League football is shown on Versus, which is owned by NBC Universal and can be seen in over 75 million households, according to Business Insider. The complete schedule of Ivy football games on Versus is shown below:

September 24th: Cornell at Yale, 12noon

October 15th: Penn at Columbia, 3:30pm

October 22nd: Yale at Penn, 12noon

November 12th: Penn at Harvard, 12noon

November 19th: Harvard at Yale, 12noon

The Ivy League press release can be seen here

Will any more of Harvard's football games be televised? If any more are picked up, it will likely be the result of an arrangement involving the participating schools, as the Harvard-Dartmouth game was last year. The matchup between those two schools has been shown on NESN the last two years.

Men's Basketball Fills Assistant Coach Opening

Harvard has hired Boston Celtics video assistant Brian Adams to filled out its coaching staff as it prepares for its 201-2012 campaign, the school's athletic department announced yesterday. Adams' hiring follows the departure of Crimson assistant Kenny Blakeney, who had been with Head Coach Tommy Amaker for the entirety of his tenure in Cambridge.

According to the Athletic Department, Adams' role for the Celtics was to record and edit video of Celtics' opponents' games, and to provide additional scouting video. This appears to be Adams' first venture into the college ranks.

First-Place Crimson Travel to Brown

Next for Harvard Basketball:

@ Brown
Where: Pizzitola Sports Complex, Providence, RI
When: 7pm tonight
Coverage: WHRB.org low-bandwith stream

The Harvard Crimson head to Providence tonight hoping to avoid the same fate that befell the Princeton Tigers last Friday, who lost to Brown 75-65 at Pizzitola. If Harvard wins its next four, it is in the NCAA tournament, but a tough road remains. Tonight's game will be available online on the "low-bandwith" stream on whrb.org, with WHRB's Scott Reed and Charlie Hobbs on the call.

Harvard Getting First-Place Pub

Fresh off of their weekend road sweep of Cornell and Columbia which finished with Harvard in a tie for first place (thanks to a Princeotn loss to Brown), the Crimson are seeing some positive press. Following the Columbia win, Harvard basketball was on the front page of ESPN.com's basketball section (image here).

Joe Lunardi of ESPN's "Bracketology" predicts Harvard to be in the field of 68 as a 14-seed facing 3-seed Georgetown in Charlotte, North Carolina in the first round. Meanwhile, Andy Glockner of Sports Illustrated's "Bracket Watch" has the Crimson as a 13-seed facing 4-seed Vanderbilit in Denver, Colorado.

In the rankings, Harvard continues to receive a vote in the Associated Press Top 25. The Crimson's RPI rating is #41, just behind Michigan State and just ahead of Illinois. Here's how all eight Ivy League teams stack up in the RPI:

#40 Harvard Crimson
#54 Princeton Tigers
...and a big drop off to
#165 Yale Bulldogs
#168 Penn Quakers
#174 Columbia Lions
#218 Brown Bears
#244 Cornell Big Red
#297 Dartmouth Big Green.


The KenPom ratings are less kind to the Crimson, as they have Harvard at #80, behind N.C. State and ahead of Providence. Here are the Ivy League teams in the KenPom rankings:

#80 Harvard Crimson
#102 Princeton Tigers
#169 Penn Quakers
#181 Yale Bulldogs
#203 Cornell Big Red
#229 Columbia Lions
#240 Brown Bears
#302 Dartmouth Big Green



Link to ESPN's Bracketology
Link to Sports Illustrated's Bracket Watch

Crimson Show Youth in First Half, Maturity in Second

by Scott Reed

WHRB Sports

My Opinion

Cambridge, MA - It was the worst half of the Harvard season to date, a half riddled with turnovers, defensive miscues, and lights-out shooting by the opponent. The dismalness of the half was rivaled only by that of the first frame of the Crimson's blowout defeat against the UConn Huskies. Connecticut has since proven to be one of the nation's best ten teams, however, while Saturday's opponent, the Brown Bears (9-13, 2-6 Ivy), were near the bottom of the Ivy League.

The first half Saturday was ghastly for the Crimson: Brown shot 63% from the field including 8 for 12 behind the three point line, and Harvard (18-4, 7-1 Ivy) committed a dozen turnovers. Harvard's frustration was apparent with the grimaces on each Crimson player's face following every made Brown basket, each more incredible than the last. The Crimson looked lost on offense, with those twelve turnovers, although they would end up shooting 46% for the half.

Perhaps it was the young, senior-less Harvard team's inability to move on from the previous night's exciting victory over Yale that led to the poor first half performance (Harvard did indeed seem sluggish at the start), or perhaps the Bears had the shooting half of their lives. A modest Brown lead quickly snowballed into a 24-point edge, aided in part by the on-court Crimson frustration. Whatever the cause of Harvard's first half malaise, the Crimson went into the locker room faced with the sobering prospect of losing a league game at home to a team well below their own talent level.

"We knew what we had to do," said Kyle Casey, whose 15-footer cut the deficit to a measly 22 points just before the first-half buzzer, in a postgame interview. "We didn't panic." Indeed they did not, at least not once the second half started. If the first half was evidence of Harvard's youth, the second was a testament to its resolve, the same resolve seen in last week's win at Penn. The Crimson outscored Brown 54-25 in the second half, including one 46-14 run, and were able to escape the night without picking up a deadly second Ivy loss. The game was won in the first eight minutes of the second half, in which Harvard cut the 22 point halftime deficit down to four. From then on, it was a matter of simply outplaying a team well below the Crimson's caliber.

So what does this mean going forward? The first half was a sobering reminder that with a team this young, no game may be chalked up as an automatic win. Yet, as it has done in its last three games, Harvard emerged victorious. Playing at home certainly helped (the Crimson moved to a program best 12-0 at Lavietes Pavilion), and 22 point halftime deficits are of course much tougher to overcome on the road.

Still, though, the Crimson avoided total disaster Saturday, and that is something. Harvard will play in many more games of consequence this season, as the Ivy race with Princeton seems headed to the wire. On an ordinary evening, many Crimson faithful might have shaken their head on hearing of the Tigers' narrow win over Cornell. But they had just witnessed their own team avoiding disaster at home. And for tonight, that was enough.

Football Notes: Harvard Adds New D-Line Coach

Image courtesy of GoBlackBears.com

The Harvard Department of Athletics has announced the addition of Maine Defensive Line Coach Dwayne Wilmot to the Crimson coaching staff, where he will serve in the same capacity. Wilmot Wilmot adds a recruiting boost as well, as he was also the Black Bears' recruiting coordinator, and will be responsible for Harvard recruiting in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.

Wilmot's Maine bio is here: http://www.goblackbears.com/sports/m-footbl/coaches/WILMOT_DWAYNE

The Harvard press release is here: http://gocrimson.com/sports/fball/2011-12/releases/110208_Wilmot_Announcement

My Opinion: Harvard Shows Resolve in Double-OT Win

By Scott Reed

WHRB Sports

Philadelphia, PA - The scoreboard lights at the Palestra had barely been extinguished, erasing the evidence of Harvard's 83-82 triumph over the Penn Quakers, when Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker reflected on the wild, wild finish.

"It was a game in which either team could have come out on top," said Amaker. Any member of the raucous crowd of 6,283 would surely agree, but the Crimson were the ones who made the deciding plays, and as close as the razor was between victory and defeat, that says something about this team.

There were many times this team could have folded. They could have folded after Penn had completed its monster comeback to send the game into overtime. They could have given up when Zac Rosen beat the buzzer to force a second overtime ("Its like your heart gets ripped out," said Junior Co-Captain Oliver McNally of Rosen's dagger). They could have given up after the Quakers jumped out to a five point lead minutes into that double-OT. They could have even called it quits for the weekend after a heartbreaking loss to Princeton the night before. But they didn't. And thats the point.

This is a young but talented Harvard team, quite possibly the most gifted of any of the 100 Harvard basketball squads to date. Yet for all of the progress Amaker has made at Harvard, his teams had yet to close out a matchup against the elite of the Ivy League in a game that had championship implications. Last year, for example, in the program's then-biggest game, Harvard was shellacked by more than 30 points at Cornell. They later lost to both Princeton and Cornell at home in games that went down to the wire. And they had fallen this past Friday to Princeton, in the first contest against the top half of the Ivy League (Cornell has since proven a tougher rebuilding job than was first thought).

Some might say the matchup with Princeton was the bigger game of the weekend, but the game Saturday night in the Palestra was a game championship teams have to win: on the road, the night after a loss, against a hostile crowd, and after giving up a big lead. And Harvard came through tonight in a way it hadn't before, which opens the door to new possibilities as the season progresses. The Crimson now know they can come through in the clutch in a conference game, and that is itself significant, something that could make this game echo well into March.

Granted, this team has a long way to go, especially after falling to Princeton on Friday to fall behind the Tigers in the Ivy standings. Next week's matchup with Yale looms large. And there are surely things to dislike if you are a member of the Harvard coaching staff. Losing an eighteen point lead is one of them, and Harvard's usually-automatic free throw shooting faltered a bit down the stretch. But the greater significance is that the Crimson were able to overcome those mistakes and still win.

"We were fortunate enough to bounce back [tonight]," said Amaker. Not just fortunate enough, Coach. Tough enough.

Scott Reed is the play-by-play commentator for Harvard football and men's basketball.