Men's Basketball To Kick Off Season Against MIT, Providence

The road back to the NCAA Tournament begins in Cambridge this weekend as the Harvard men’s basketball team kicks off its season against MIT and Providence. While the Crimson got its first taste of game action last weekend in an exhibition against McGill, the team will tip off the official season Friday night against the Engineers under the banners of its five consecutive Ivy Title banners in Lavietes Pavilion.

While Harvard holds a 13-game win streak against the Engineers, this is a very different Crimson team. The cross-town rivals faced off in last year’s season opener, with Harvard defeating MIT, 73-52, but the Crimson’s top two offensive weapons–Wesley Saunders ’15 and senior Siyani Chambers–shouldered the majority of the scoring burden, tallying 15 points each in the opener. Without Saunders and Chambers, Harvard must find new ways to generate offense.

Junior Zena Edosomwan contributed 21 points in the McGill exhibition, but has been inconsistent in the regular season. In his first two years with the Crimson, the junior has averaged just 3.5 points and four rebounds per game.

The Crimson is in a very different place than when it last faced the Engineers. At this time last year, Harvard was ranked No. 25 in the nation, today it is ranked No. 4 in the Ivy League preseason poll. MIT may be a Division III basketball program, but Harvard cannot take its opponent lightly.

“They’re a team that always does well in their division and always kind of has a culture of excellence there, a culture of winning, and a culture of championships, so they certainly know how to win,” co-captain Evan Cummins said.

Less than 24 hours after tipping off against the Engineers, the Crimson will head to the Dunkin Donuts Center to take on Providence. The Friars present a stark difference in competition, as they were a No. 6 seed in the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

The biggest question of the weekend lies in how Harvard will contain Providence junior guard Kris Dunn. Dunn, who was expected to enter the NBA draft last year but elected to remain at Providence for another year, was ranked the No. 2 college basketball player in the nation by ESPN and averaged just under 16 points and eight assists per game last year.

Dunn’s size and ability to run the offense at the point will pose trouble for the Crimson. Harvard’s point guards remain untested, as the team lost presumptive starter Chambers, its three-year starting point guard, to an ACL injury over the summer.

“He’s someone that he’s so good it’s not going to be one person that’s going to be able to guard him and contain him,” Cummins said. “We’re really going to have to always know where he is on the floor and really focus on our help side rotations to be able to help whoever’s guarding him. He’s just an explosive and elite level player.”

Against McGill, the Crimson struggled with help defense. Throughout the first half, the visitors exploited the Harvard frontcourt by drawing the forwards out to the perimeter to help cover the speedy McGill guards, leaving a post player wide open for the layup.

“I think they did a good job of taking us away from the rim as far as the bigs go,” Cummins said after the McGill exhibition. “That was a little bit of an adjustment for us because we spent a lot of time on the perimeter and that made it easier for them when their guards penetrated.”

MIT and Providence will give the rookies their first taste at playing back-to-back nights, something the team’s veterans are all too familiar with. The Ivy League structures its conference schedule in a “14-game tournament” where the Ancient Eight teams play back-to-back Friday and Saturday nights for six weeks to round out the regular season.

“We’ve thought about how this could be a great lesson for us as we move into conference play later in our year,” coach Tommy Amaker said. “This is what the league is all about– back to back.”

But the Crimson will inevitably have kinks to work out. Providence will be an important test, giving the young squad a chance to see how it stands up to national competition.

“This is a very new group, all of us are, we’re all in new positions. Basically we are unproven,” Edosomwan said after the McGill exhibition. “We’re all coming together and learning each other on the fly and just trying to be successful. Every day is just a new day we’re trying to get better.”