Harvard Receives AP Top-25 Vote From Unexpected Source

This week’s Associated Press Top 25 Men's College Basketball poll had a surprise entry in the Others receiving votes category. Along with Penn State, Duquesne, and Belmont, Harvard managed to receive a single vote in the poll, making it the third straight season and fourth in the past six that the Crimson has received a vote.

In previous years, the Washington Post’s John Feinstein—a friend of coach Tommy Amaker—has been the usual source of AP votes for Harvard.

But this time, the voter in question was none other than Pete Gilbert of WBAL-TV 11 in Baltimore. His ballot, which put the Crimson at No. 25, may be found here.

The Back Page spoke to Gilbert today to get the scoop on his decision.

“The couple of times that I have seen or read about Harvard, they’ve been doing very well, and so you know what, maybe this is a team that deserves a little pub, too,” the Maryland native said.

“Going through the process, this year in particular...the back end of the poll has been more tumultuous than ever. The last five, six teams in would then lose twice, or lose once. There’s been so much turnover, and so I just started digging a little deeper,” Gilbert said. “Looking at Harvard, and looking at the wins that it had over GWU, Colorado, and Boston College...BC—who I’ve had the chance to see play this year, and I think is a pretty good basketball team—that was a really good win.”

“When you can see a guy like Keith Wright not do well, but the team can still do well and get a quality win, that’s indicative of the depth and the quality of the team,” Gilbert added. “And so, in the end, I said, maybe I have to ignore the Ivy part...and recognize it’s a good basketball team.”

Gilbert has not seen the Crimson play this year in person, but don’t be surprised to see Harvard get a vote next week, too.

“The way I look at it with my poll is you have to be knocked out,” he said. “Someone has to prove to me that they are that much better than you. I didn’t view this as just a weekly token thing. This week, I thought the way they were playing and looking at everybody else, I thought they were one of the top 25 teams in the country.