Madness for Everyone

The 2012-2013 Harvard men’s basketball season began in the shadow of the Gov 1310: “Introduction to Congress” cheating scandal, which led to the withdrawal of the team’s co-captains, Kyle D. Casey ’13 and Brandyn T. Curry ’13. From the start, the defending Ivy League champions were no longer favored to repeat. The year started with a blasé fan base and a turbid forecast, with the springtime frenzy of last season’s run long dissipated. But it ended with a bang, not a whimper.

Harvard’s season opened without its captains, and its record started out at a mediocre 2-3. Slowly, though, things changed. A freshman point guard, Siyani Chambers ’16, thrust into a starting role, emerged as Ivy League Rookie of the Year. A veteran, Christian Webster ’13, once relegated to a bench role, came alive as a leader. A team coalesced under its coach and played as a well-knit unit. And Laurent Rivard ’14 hit a lot of three pointers.

That last item might not count as a change (although it did reach a program record). But suffice it to say that Harvard’s against-the-odds push to the postseason, coupled with an earth- and bracket-shattering win over third-seeded New Mexico, took the school and the NCAA by surprise. Of course, for most of the world, Harvard’s basketball run was just that: a basketball run. An ESPN image reading “Harvard Just Busted My Bracket” (and featuring a paper bracket two-thirds through a shredder) surely summed up the impact on the majority of Americans—a few dollars lost in the office pool or a few days of gloating over a bit of clairvoyance. But to Harvard, the basketball performance meant more than the 68-62 final score against New Mexico. It meant more both as a direct cause and as a sign of something bigger.

As for the causal side, Harvard’s basketball run caused what March basketball success causes at most colleges fortunate enough to obtain it. It caused giddiness, camaraderie, and pride in the school. The basketball team’s run ignited the student body in Cambridge and Harvard alumni around the globe. Some fans helped give the seats in Salt Lake City’s EnergySolutions Arena a redoubtable Harvard presence. Others partook in on-campus viewing parties, and alums filled bars to watch the team together. Although scattered during spring break, students turned to social media to connect, to gnaw their collective nails, and then to celebrate. Even the Crimson’s loss two days later to the Arizona Wildcats did little to dampen the communal spirit.

But Harvard’s men’s basketball ascendancy, from 66 straight years without NCAA appearances to a ranked, national competitor and producer of NBA talent, is also proof of athletics’ potential on an unlikely campus. This campus qualifies as “unlikely” in part because the Ivy League owes its renown to research and academics, not to basketball. But a concerted administration and alumni push garnered a top-class coach and built a winning team in Cambridge. Similarly, a fusion of coaching and talent (and this year, an NFL draft pick) helped the Crimson football team earn wins in eleven of the past twelve Harvard-Yale games.

“Unlikely” also fits because athletics do not carry a clear, tangible advantage for Harvard. The school is hardly wanting for applicants, a common justification at many colleges. As for money, the Harvard basketball team earned $1,225,999 million in 2011-2012. It also spent $1,225,999. But a prime if less calculable result of Harvard’s athletics success comes in the community it engenders—or perhaps reveals. That community spans generations: A seamless line of succession links the student sections at Harvard Stadium, or Lavietes Pavilion, or the Bright Hockey Center with alumni and their televisions across the country and the globe.

At times, the phrase “Harvard community,” a claim of unity and identity, seems more the stuff of Admissions Office agitprop than a student reality. Harvard is a kaleidoscope of clubs, organizations, teams, concentrations, origins, and more. But the example of Harvard’s basketball run shows that room remains for the school to unite. Fandom is a great leveler. It orients a group toward one common goal and one common set of emotions, a brief but salubrious respite from the more personalized rigors of academic and extracurricular life. Just as both individual diversity and social cohesion boost corporate productivity, a cohesive Harvard is worth having too.

Of course, while Harvard’s athletic successes, especially in basketball, evince the real presence of a community, they do not circumscribe it. Basketball is not religion at Harvard. Tommy Amaker is not a god—although more Crimson success might make us revisit that. The Harvard-Yale football game’s allure, for instance, derives in part from the sporting event, but very significantly from students’ events and experiences surrounding it.

In a non-athletic example, Housing Day channels school pride through the spirit its Houses stir up. And on a different note, even the Marathon bombings and ensuing manhunt, a time of tragedy and threat, revealed a communal character: Students and administrators reached out to friends and family who had run or watched the race, then huddled around police scanners or took to the open air of Harvard Yard in a move of confidence and resolve. Sometimes, the Harvard community truly shows itself—maybe when a new class learns its House for the next three years, maybe when tragedy strikes, and maybe when five young men step onto a wooden court and produce something special.

Looking ahead, the apparent future for the Crimson on the court has us excited. Erstwhile captains Casey and Curry will return for a final year. Zena Edosoman ’17, the first Scout.com Top 100 prospect to grace the Ivy League, will join the team this fall. Wesley Saunders ’15 and Siyani Chambers ’16 will both be a year older. Laurent Rivard will keep shooting. Meanwhile, Class of 2015 players like Steve Moundou-Missi and Kenyatta Smith will enter the season with experience after bolstering a depleted roster. And of course, Tommy Amaker will be the coach.

Still, as last season demonstrated, predicted success is not assured success, but nor is a single tournament win what this is all about. The essence lies in a Harvard basketball team and a broader athletic program with relevance and excitement to draw in students, to bring them together. Then again, when March 2014 arrives, a win or two would be nice as well. Harvard basketball has us dreaming. Better yet, it has the Harvard community dreaming, too.