(Harvard) Love and Basketball

Though the season doesn’t get under way for nearly two months, this weekend had important implications for the future of Harvard men’s basketball.

For the fifth straight year, head coach Tommy Amaker hosted a slew of high school basketball prospects on campus for the football team’s home opener. The campus visits—official for the high school class of 2012 and unofficial for the class of 2013—are an important part of the decision-making process for all prospective athletes.

Some of the blue-chip recruits listed Harvard as one of their top choices, up there with the likes of basketball powerhouses as Kansas and UConn. To gauge their interest in Harvard, we’ll refer to the most authoritative source of news we know: the players’ Twitter accounts.

Seven of the eight prospects Amaker hosted (and we stalked) have Twitters, and regular tweets throughout the weekend indicate that the basketball program kept the recruits entertained.

“Hands down that was the best weekend of my life,” tweeted Davon Reed, a junior at Princeton Day School (N.J.).

Tweets from another junior, Alex Foster, who is ranked No. 82 in his class by MaxPreps.com, are also reflected that the recruits enjoyed their time on campus.

“Looks like I know where I’m going for college,” he tweeted at approximately 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, a wee-hours-of-the-morning post that appears to bode well for the program.

Other than watching Crimson football defeat Brown, 24-7, in its first home game of the season, the recruits got taste of Harvard life by, among other things, working out, having dinner at Legal Seafoods (we’ll let them believe that’s authentic), and, of course, partying.

“One of those nights where u can’t tell Ur parents about! Haha,” tweeted Foster of his Saturday-night escapades.

Although the other prospects aren’t as active with their Twitter feeds as Foster and Reed, the rest of the players seemed to have a good time as well. “lol, a weekend I will never forget,” tweeted current Harvard junior Brandyn Curry. Tagged in the tweet were recruits Stephen Domingo, Siyani Chambers, and Brannen Greene.