Harvard Fans Hope For Another NCAA Win

Harvard and March Madness aren't usually mentioned in the same sentence, but this year that has changed.

The men's basketball team plays the University of Arizona Saturday night in the NCAA Tournament. On Thursday, the team won its first-ever game in the tournament, stunning New Mexico 68-62.

Head coach Tommy Amaker is getting a lot of credit for the team's success. This is his sixth season at Harvard, and the third time the Crimson are Ivy League champions. The team is in the "big dance" for the second-straight year, despite losing its top two players before the season began.

On campus, students and alumni say the team is a success — no matter what happens next.

Harvard senior Charlie Hobbs, sports director and men's basketball play-by-play announcer for the student radio station, WHRB, says this season's team is a historic one.

"Regardless of how this game turns out tonight and whether Harvard does get the chance to take the trip out to LA and keep dancing, I think that for Harvard, this is certainly a squad for the history books," Hobbs said.

Sophomore Patrick Schiller says being in the tournament at all is an accomplishment.

"It was questionable whether or not we would even make the tournament, so making at all I think made it a successful season," Schiller said. "And, having won a game — it's better than Harvard's ever done since the early 1900s."

"That being said," sophomore Evan Weiner chimed in, "Go Crimson! Beat the Wildcats!"