NOTEBOOK: Crimson's Tourney Win Places It in Top 25 Discussion

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas—Last Monday, the Harvard men’s basketball team received three votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. One week later, the Crimson should expect to receive plenty more.

After going 3-0 and winning the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament this weekend, Harvard improved to 6-0 on the year and is off to its best start since the 1984-85 season. And with Friday’s win over No. 22 Florida State and Saturday’s victory against a talented University of Central Florida team, the Crimson has made a strong case to be included in this week’s Top 25 poll, which will be released Monday afternoon.

“I’m certainly going to give them every consideration,” said Sports Illustrated college basketball writer Seth Davis, a voter in the AP poll. “I’ll give them a good, long look. They’ve got a great shot.”

If the Crimson, one of only 29 Division I teams in the country that remains undefeated, were to make it into the Top 25, it would mark the first time in program history that a Harvard team was ranked.

“I think it would mean a lot [to be ranked],” said co-captain Keith Wright following the Crimson’s 59-49 win over UCF. “It would speak to all the hard work we’ve put in.”

Wright’s fellow captain, senior Oliver McNally had a different take.

“But at the same time, it doesn’t mean too much,” McNally chimed in. “We have a really tough road ahead of us. You can’t really stop to celebrate.”

The last time an Ivy League squad made its way into the Top 25 was at the conclusion of the 2009-2010 season following Cornell’s run to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The Big Red, which finished the season ranked No. 17 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll had spent time in the Top 25 earlier that season after dismantling Harvard by 36 in an early Ivy League contest.

JORDAN OVERRULED

Wright was named the tournament’s MVP following Harvard’s win over the Knights Saturday afternoon, but junior point guard Brandyn Curry may have truly been the Crimson’s most valuable player.

“He doesn’t get as much recognition as some of the other kids—Keith and [junior Kyle Casey]—but he’s as important to this team as anybody else—or even more,” said McNally of Curry.

While the point guard finished with just six points, three rebounds, and two assists in Saturday’s championship, Curry played a team-high 34 minutes and was responsible for defending the Knights’ second-leading scorer, Marcus Jordan—the youngest son of NBA legend Michael Jordan.

Curry limited Jordan, who entered the game averaging 17.3 points per game, to 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting from the field. Jordan struggled in the first half in particular, missing all six of his field-goal attempts. Curry brought the Harvard bench to its feet midway through the opening frame when the 6’1 guard elevated to block one of Jordan’s three-point attempts.

“Looking at [Curry’s] stat line, it doesn’t look great for the game, but anybody who was at the game could feel his presence and know how important he was for us throughout,” McNally said. “When he plays well, we usually do also.”

Curry also played a critical role in Friday’s victory over the Seminoles. The lefty scored five points and picked up a steal in the game’s final minute to extend the Crimson’s lead from three to eight.

“He’s just a great floor general,” Wright said. “We can’t do the things that we do without him as our point guard.”

NO FREE LUNCH

While Jordan’s offense was limited by Curry’s defense, the Knights’ leading scorer, forward Keith Clanton, also struggled. Clanton, who entered Saturday’s contest coming off a 20-point performance in UCF’s victory over No. 4 UConn, finished with 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting, his worst shooting performance of the season.

“We didn’t want to bail those guys out,” said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker of Jordan and Clanton. “We need to play our defense without fouling them. That was critical.”

Jordan and Clanton got to the line seven times but converted only three free throws. The Knights’ free-throw woes extended beyond Jordan and Clanton, as UCF shot an abysmal 8-of-23 (35 percent) from the charity stripe.

The Crimson made 35 trips to the free-throw line and connected on 23, good for 66 percent. Casey led the way for Harvard, getting to the line on 12 occasions. But the junior struggled, going 7-for-12, the one blemish on an otherwise strong performance on the eve of his 21st birthday.

“I thought that other than Kyle’s being a better foul shooter than what he displayed here in this game, I thought he played an outstanding game,” Amaker said.

—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.