Four games in, the Harvard men’s basketball team (3-1) has performed roughly as its ranking would have suggested. Apart from a one-point loss to Holy Cross, Harvard has blown away each of its other opponents with suffocating defense and timely offense. The Crimson will look to run its record to 4-0 at home when UMass comes to town Saturday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion (2:00 p.m., ESPN3). Below, The Back Page takes a look at the three main things to keep your eye on as Harvard goes for its first marquee nonconference win of the season.

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After three games, the Harvard men’s basketball team (2-1) has sandwiched solid home wins around a surprising neutral-court defeat to Holy Cross. The Crimson will look to continue protecting home-court advantage when it takes on Houston (2-0) Tuesday night at Lavietes Pavilion. Below, The Back Page takes a look at the three main things to keep your eye on as the Crimson tries to stay undefeated on its current four-game homestand.

Trap Games: Before the year, much was made about Harvard’s nonconference schedule—or lack thereof. The schedule lacks the marquee games of past years, with teams like Memphis, Colorado, and St. Mary’s absent from the schedule. However, while the slate of games is not top-heavy, it carries a number of dangerous games against teams solidly in the NCAA’s middle tier. Harvard plays eight programs ranked between 65 and 165 on KenPom, with two of the Crimson’s conference opponents—Yale and Columbia—falling in the same range.

Houston carries a 2-0 record and a no. 163 ranking into Lavietes. The Cougars have a solid early road win over top-100 Murray State and took out SMU, Memphis, and UConn last year, so the team will not be intimidated by the host Crimson. Despite a ranking in the triple digits, Houston represents a stiff early season test for Harvard.

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Four days after a 58-57 loss to Holy Cross knocked the Harvard men’s basketball team (1-1) out of the Top 25, the Crimson will retake the court against the Florida Atlantic Owls Thursday night (8:00 P.M., Lavietes Pavilion). Below, The Back Page takes a look at the three main things to keep your eye on as Harvard aims to regain its footing. 

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The day after senior Wesley Saunders stuffed the stat sheet in a matchup against Holy Cross, the wing got word that he had been tapped for the Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 list. The award, according to its website, “is the most prestigious individual honor in college basketball.”

The news came just two weeks after ESPN deemed Saunders the 46th best player in the nation and six days after he “headline[d] the Lou Henson Award Preseason Watch List.”

Saunders was the only Ancient Eight player to be named to the Wooden Award list, and will have to best the top players in the nation if he is to earn individual honors in late March. Others nominated include prospective No. 1 2015 NBA Draft picks Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, who hail from Duke and Kentucky, respectively.

Past winners of the Wooden Award include NBA phenoms Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, and Anthony Davis. Per Harvard Athletics, Saunders is just the second Harvard men’s basketball player in program history to appear on the list, joining the ranks of Jeremy Lin ’10.

On Sunday, Saunders tallied 24 points, 12 rebounds, four steals, three blocks, and three assists in a loss to Holy Cross. 

Break out your paint, markers, colored pencils, and posters. College GameDay is coming to The Game.

On Sunday, ESPN announced that its weekly three-hour college football preview show will broadcast on the quad outside Dillon Field House before the undefeated Harvard football team faces Yale for the 131st time this Saturday, Nov. 22. The live show will air from 9 a.m. to noon EST.

Tapings for other ESPN programs will take place on Friday on the GameDay set and continue periodically throughout the day until 2:30 p.m.

GameDay’s appearances at Harvard and the Game will be firsts for the Emmy Award-winning program, which is in its 28th season. The show will be hosted by Chris Fowler alongside analysts Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstriet, Desmond Howard and David Pollack, and reporting by Samantha Ponder, Tom Rinaldi, Scott Van Pelt, George Whitfield, and Gene Wojciechowski.

GameDay is the top-rated pre-game program for college football and averaged 1.83 million viewers during the 2013 season. The show features a tailgate party atmosphere in which hundreds of fans armed with colorful signs gather behind the main cameras.

Harvard last appeared on GameDay in 2002, when the Crimson faced off against UPenn in Philadelphia. Saturday will be only the second time the program has covered an Ivy League game.

On Saturday, the Crimson (9-0, 6-0 Ivy) will have a chance to clinch the outright Ivy title and finish its first undefeated season since 2004. A Yale (8-1, 5-1 Ivy) win would force Harvard to share the Ancient Eight crown.