This year’s team will be longer and more athletic than in past years but still figures to pride itself on suffocating defense and playing an inside-out game through its big men on the offensive end.
The 2016-2017 campaign gets off to a unique start on Nov. 11. The Crimson will take on Stanford in the second annual Pac-12 China Game in Shanghai. While the game is historic for both programs, it is also a major opportunity for this year’s Harvard team to establish itself on an international stage against a major conference opponent.
Harvard’s nonconference schedule does not feature a team like Virginia or Kansas like it has the past two seasons. But the Crimson does have dates with New England foes and other mid-major opponents.
Harvard went 4-5 last season against the teams it squares off against in this year’s non-conference slate. Patrick Steeves ’16 returns to Cambridge for the Crimson’s clash with George Washington on Nov. 29. Harvard will also make trips to Vermont, the favorite in the America East, and Houston, a darkhorse pick to win the American.
Come January, this year’s Ivy League will go through Princeton. The Tigers were picked first (seven votes ahead of the Crimson) in the Ivy League preseason media poll and return 98.9 percent of their minutes and 99.3 percent of their offensive production from a season ago. Led by senior All-Ivy forwards Henry Caruso, Spencer Weisz, and Steven Cook, Princeton is looking to make its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2011.
Unlike last season, in which the Ivy’s top four teams had their travel partners fall in the bottom half of the league standings, the Penn-Princeton matchup this year looms large. This competition harkens back to early days, when the programs claimed every Ancient Eight title from 1963 to 2007. In 2016-2017, the Quakers are led by a strong sophomore class and have a bevy of talented guards. Steve Donahue’s squad was picked fourth in the preseason poll.
The big wild card in the league is Yale. The Elis took home the Ivy League crown last season and defeated Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Yale returns Makai Mason, the conference’s best player, but lost All-Ivy forwards Justin Sears and Brandon Sherrod. Several sophomores and juniors who saw time coming off the bench last season will look to plug in the holes left by the duo. Overshadowed by the hype of Harvard’s 2016 recruiting class are Jordan Bruner and Miye Oni. Bruner was rated a three-star recruit in his own right coming out of South Carolina, while Oni is a long wing and dynamic scorer.
Dartmouth and Cornell, respectively tabbed sixth and seventh in the preseason poll, both have new coaches but return players who gave Harvard fits last season. The Big Green has Ivy League Rookie of the Year Evan Boudreaux back, while the Big Red will be led by the high-volume-shooting backcourt of Robert Hatter and Matt Morgan, both of whom could compete for the conference’s scoring title.
After finishing third in the conference and winning the CollegeInsider.com Tournament last season, Columbia will be in rebuilding mode following the graduation of its best senior class in program history and coach Kyle Smith’s decision to take the head job at San Francisco. Meanwhile Brown returns a core group of seniors and hopes to get out of the conference’s basement in Mike Martin’s fifth season at the helm.
“A lot of us as coaches have been saying this, but I think over the last ten years we’ve seen how incredibly strong and challenging and difficult our league has been from top to bottom,” Amaker said. “I’m not sure it’s gotten the kind of attention and recognition outside of our league outside of the last few years, but we’re known that internally. Our league is going to be difficult.”
—Staff writer Stephen Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com.