Men's Basketball First in Ivy Preseason Poll

Success begets confidence.

On the heels of its fourth straight conference championship, the Harvard men’s basketball team was selected in the Ivy League preseason media poll as the unanimous choice to finish first in the league for the 2014-2015 season, conference officials announced Wednesday.

Harvard has been the unanimous choice two years in a row after the departures of Brandyn Curry ’13-14 and Kyle Casey ’13-14 knocked the Crimson down to second two years ago. This will mark the third time in four seasons that the Crimson has finished first; Harvard accumulated 16 of 17 possible first-place votes in 2011-2012.

Over the four-year stretch, the Crimson has lost just eight league games. Last year’s team lost just one game while posting a 13.3-point average margin of victory—statistically the league’s strongest champion in a decade. Harvard set program records in both overall wins (27) and conference victories en route to the NCAA Tournament, where it defeated Cincinnati in the first round before falling to Michigan State in the round of 32.

This year’s team brings back reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Wesley Saunders alongside two-time All-Ivy selections and co-captains Steve Moundou-Missi and junior Siyani Chambers. Senior center Kenyatta Smith—the team’s starting center two years ago—returns after missing nearly the entire 2013-2014 season. Sophomore Corbin Miller, who looked like the team’s best three-point shooter at Crimson Madness, is back after two years on his Mormon mission.

Following the Crimson in the poll were Yale and Columbia, each of which boasts an All-Ivy caliber frontcourt talent in Justin Sears and Alex Rosenberg, respectively. Princeton, which hasn’t finished outside the top three since the 2007-2008 season, was picked to finish fourth following the departure of All-Ivy first team guard T.J. Bray.