When he arrived on campus in September, rookie point guard Siyani Chambers, the reigning Minnesota Mr. Basketball, likely was not expecting to end his first collegiate season with another significant award.
Chambers was projected to receive sparse minutes off the bench behind then-senior co-captain Brandyn Curry as the former slowly came to adapt to the collegiate game.
But within weeks, Curry had left school, and Chambers was handed the keys to the car far sooner than anyone had expected coming into the year.
“We said at the beginning of the season that there’s no one more important on our team than that kid, given the circumstances [and] the position,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said this week.
Chambers not only held down the fort in Curry’s absence, but excelled. Six months later, after a rookie campaign that exceeded all expectations, the point guard has led his team to its third-consecutive Ivy League championship and—as was announced on Wednesday—was unanimously named the league’s Rookie of the Year.
“I think he’s very deserving,” Amaker said. “That’s how our team has been able to have some success this year. He’s been the leader of that. He’s been in the middle of it. He’s made timely plays, big shots, winning baskets.”
The point guard was also named to the All-Ivy League first team—the first freshman in Ivy League history to earn that distinction—after finishing second on the Crimson with 12.9 points per game. He lead all rookies nationally with 37.8 minutes per game and was second in the country among freshman with 5.61 assists per contest.
“He has great vision, he’s a terrific passer, [and] he has an incredible command of that spot on the floor,” Amaker said. “He’s very unselfish–he’s one of those players that you love playing with because you know you’re going to get the ball when you’re open.”
Sophomore wing Wesley Saunders, the league’s leading scorer, was also a first team All-Ivy selection—he made the squad unanimously—while sophomore forward Steve Moundou-Missi and junior co-captain Laurent Rivard earned honorable mention distinctions.
Chambers, who collected six league Player of the Week awards during the 2012-13 campaign, became the seventh Harvard player to win Ivy Rookie of the Year and the first since Kyle Casey took home the award three seasons ago.
“He’s a tough kid, he’s a very competitive kid, and he’s been a winner his whole life,” Amaker said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’s been doing what he’s been doing for us.”
