BASKETBALL '08 SUPPLEMENT: Youth is Served

Last year, after the verbal commitments by incoming freshmen gave the Harvard men’s basketball team a recruiting class that ranked in the top 25 in the nation, Crimson coach Tommy Amaker spent some time in the Ivy League spotlight.

After the dust settled and letters of intent were signed, Harvard lost arguably its top recruit, center Frank Ben-Eze, but managed to haul in a top-flight freshman class nonetheless. While the Crimson will be led by three veteran seniors and a few experienced juniors, youth will be a big theme this year, as the team sports seven freshmen on its roster.

The seven first-years come from seven different states, and each player will bring a unique skill set to a team that was picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League in the preseason media poll. The players are not focused on the ranking, though.

“We were brought here to win an Ivy championship and that’s our goal,” freshman forward Andrew Van Nest says.

Van Nest was one of the Crimson’s top recruits, but the 6’10” forward, who hails from nearby Weston, Mass., will not set foot on the court this year because of a shoulder injury suffered last week that will require season-ending surgery.

He is joined by six healthy freshmen. Max Kenyi, a 6’4” guard from Silver Spring, Md., will likely see significant playing time this year. He was named the Gatorade Washington D.C. Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year last season after leading his team to a 34-1 record and a top-10 national ranking.

Oliver McNally is a 6’3” guard from San Francisco, Calif. He, too, led his team to great success in high school, winning three straight league and Division V state championships.

Another impact freshman is Keith Wright, a 6’8” forward from Suffolk, Va. He is a powerful player who will immediately give Harvard an imposing frontcourt, and his senior year averages—20 points, 13 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks per game—indicate his versatility on both ends of the court.

While Wright, Kenyi, and McNally will likely see the most playing time in the class of 2012, center Peter Swiatek and forwards Peter Boehm and Hugh Martin will all fight for minutes on a roster that is half freshmen.

Amaker himself looks at each one as a blank slate. The highly touted players will have to fight for a spot in the rotation just as hard as everyone else.

“I don’t go by who’s the most touted,” Amaker says, when asked about the freshmen impact. “They all have to earn their stripes. They’re all trying to do that—gain the respect, earn their stripes by being teammates, having a good work ethic, and not expecting anything. I love that about them.”

College could prove to be a tough transition even for players who played on the highest level in high school. At a school where academic—not athletic—standards usually set the bar, the coaches still do not give their players an easier time.

“In high school you go hard a couple days,” Kenyi says. “Here you go hard every day, but you have to fight through it.”

“Their heads are spinning a little bit,” Amaker adds. “With school, being away from home, and hearing me coach and teach, rant and rave.”

The toughness of both the program and the academics seems to have been the catch that drew the players to the Crimson rather than that which turned them away.

“This is one of the best schools in the world,” Van Nest says. “The one thing that put it over the top for me was the plans after school—whatever I want to do, having a Harvard degree in your back pocket will help.”

It was the same reason that drew Kenyi, a recruit who received offers from Marquette and George Mason.

“It was the best combination of school and athletics for me,” he says. “A perfect situation.”

High hopes and championship dreams may rule the players’ minds, but what can be regarded as the biggest boon for the team—a top-ranked recruiting class—could also be the team’s biggest weakness, with half the team never having played in a college basketball game.

“I’m excited for people to see us as a top class of freshmen, but we still have a lot to prove,” Kenyi says.

“We like what we have, and we like that they can have a chance to be good someday,” Amaker says. “Maybe that day is tomorrow, and maybe it’s a few months from now.”

Whether or not Harvard achieves success right away, Amaker’s apparent goal is to mold a solid team foundation with the freshman class. The hope is that this will lead to the Crimson hoisting the Ivy League championship trophy for the first time in school history, but only time will tell.

—Staff writer Paul T. Hedrick can be reached at phedrick@fas.harvard.edu.