But I also know that Casey and Curry have both played critical roles in the rapid, historic turnaround of the men’s basketball programs.

And now, the big question: Why does that matter? Why should we care?

Sports, more than almost any other force I know, have the ability to unite communities, to bring people together in an almost magical way. Nothing can reduce grown men to tears, create instantaneous, massive ways of hugging and high-fiving, like sports can. And certainly, that feeling of camaraderie doesn’t end on the court or in the stands. It continues into the dining halls, into our everyday conversations, gives us something to root for, to smile about, even to dream about.

One friend at Georgetown once told me that during basketball season, people are friendlier to one another. At Duke, students rarely go abroad in the spring because of—you guessed it—basketball season.

Of course, the rejoinder is simple: We’re Not Georgetown or Duke, God Forbid. We’re Harvard. We’re not a basketball school. We’re an academic institution, damn it, and the finest one in the world at that.

But as I see it, having a nationally ranked basketball team doesn’t somehow diminish the school’s academic stature. Not at all. What can it do? Build community, school-wide community, a source of pride with undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni, with a reach and scope that very little else can match.

Last season, when Harvard made it to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the Truman Administration, we saw glimpses of that. And Casey and Curry were responsible for much of it.

And so, this I also know I know:

If you’ve been a part of that ecstatic throng to leap up and down on those crickety old Lavietes bleachers belting, “I believe that we will win,” you have Casey and Curry to thank.

If you stormed the court in March of 2011 following the Ivy title-clinching win against Princeton, you have Casey and Curry to thank.

If you never cared as much about a sports team until the 2011-12 version of Harvard men’s basketball, you have Casey and Curry to thank.

If you put down what you were doing on a random day during spring break to watch some basketball game in Albuquerque, you have Casey and Curry to thank.

And this I believe:

Maybe, thanks to the loss of its two stars, the men’s basketball team won’t repeat this season as Ivy champs. But despite that, and despite whatever infractions they did or did not commit, their impact on this school, as I see it, is still overwhelmingly positive. Casey and Curry have helped lay the groundwork for the long-term growth of this program, this team that united a community last year and has the ability to do so even more in the future.

And for that, Brandyn and Kyle, I say thank you.

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.

—Follow him on Twitter @bobbysamuels.