In other words, “no chance” has become “no doubt” for Harvard fans. Getting an invite to the Big Dance is now expected—getting a victory in the Tourney is now the real test of success.
This upward trend in expectations perhaps reached its pinnacle on Wednesday morning as President Barack Obama released his own bracket in which he predicted that the Crimson will sneak by the Bearcats and advance to the Round of 32.
“I think that’s pretty cool that he picked us,” said Harvard co-captain Laurent Rivard at Wednesday’s press conference in Spokane. “He probably took notice [of us] last year, he probably didn’t pick us last year [though].”
But it wasn’t just the experts that picked the Crimson to advance. According to ESPN, of the 6.97 million brackets that had been submitted to ESPN’s Tournament Challenge by Wednesday, 30.5 percent predicted a Harvard upset.
“I think [our program] is getting recognition, I think we have been able to attain a level of credibility with our basketball program,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said on Wednesday. “[But] we have always talked about [‘expectations’] being an external word and we are trusting our guys that we’re always going to focus on our internal word, which is the word standards. And that’s what we have done.”
While these expectations have brought increased media attention to the Crimson, so too have they brought increased pressure. The abundance of people—expert or not—picking the underdogs t has led to the Ohio team claiming it needs to prove it can win and, as Rubles said, “make” others “respect” the Bearcats.
When told of the President’s pick, neither of the Cincinnati co-captains, guard Sean Kilpatrick and forward Justin Jackson, showed any surprise.
“It’s nothing new, we’re used to it,” Kilpatrick said Wednesday. “We’re so used to being counted out throughout the regular season that now it’s something that [is] second nature…. We can only just really focus on what matters with us and the team in the locker room. We have been counted out all year and look how far we have gotten now.”
When the squads take the floor on Thursday, the typical roles of a second-round Tournament game will be reversed. The fifth-seeded team will come out with something to prove, perceiving themselves to be the underdog. The No. 12 seed, however, will step onto the hardwood looking to validate its hype and match the level of basketball it played in last year’s Dance.
In what will be one of the first games of the second round, it appears that this matchup will already show the madness so typical of March college basketball.
—Staff writer Juliet Spies-Gans can be reached at juliet.spiesgans@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @JulietSpiesGans.