CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Harvard opens its 111th season of men's basketball against first-time foe Morehouse, on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET inside Lavietes Pavilion. The game will air live on ESPN+.
What to Know
- The contest marks the first time the Crimson has been in action since beating Yale, 83-69, on March 7, 2020, a span of 612 days.
- Harvard provided a brief glimpse of its 2021-22 roster at its Crimson Madness event on Oct. 15. The Maroon Tigers, meanwhile, have played two exhibitions, falling at Georgia Tech, 89-52, and coming up short at Georgia last Friday, 64-49. Morehouse's last regular-season game occurred on March 6, 2020.
- The Crimson is playing host to the first of two HBCUs this season. In late December, Harvard will welcome Howard to Lavietes Pavilion. The Dec. 21 contest will mark the sixth meeting between the schools since the start of the 2013-14 season.
- The Crimson have won three straight season openers and nine consecutive lidlifters at home.
- Harvard is 10-3 in the first game of the season under Tommy Amaker, who comes into the year as the all-time winningest coach in program history (251 victories, including a school-best 126 Ivy League wins).
- The Crimson is opening against a team other than MIT for the first time since 2016-17, when it faced Stanford in Shanghai, China.
- Harvard went 11-1 at home in 2019-20 and has won seven straight non-conference contests inside Lavietes Pavilion. The Crimson last suffered defeat at home to a non-Ivy League school on Nov. 9, 2018.
- The Crimson has won four straight November home games, a streak that began on Nov. 28, 2018, a 73-62 victory over Holy Cross.
- Dating back to 2019-20, Harvard has won seven of its last eight and is 8-2 in its last 10 outings.
- The Crimson enters the season having finished in second place in the 2021-22 Ivy League Preseason Media Poll. Harvard earned 110 points and received four first-place votes, finishing behind Yale, which garnered 115 points and seven first-place considerations.
- Harvard is led by senior and 2020 all-Ivy League first-team selection Noah Kirkwood, who was tabbed as a 2021-22 preseason all-Ivy honoree by Blue Ribbon. First-year guard Louis Lesmond, meanwhile, was named Blue Ribbon's preseason Ivy League Rookie of the Year after he helped France capture a silver medal at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in July.
- The Crimson return nine players from the 2019-20 squad and welcome two new classes, totaling seven student-athletes. Wearing the Harvard uniform for the first time are first-years Louis Lesmond, Bennett Pitcher, Tyler Simon and Denham Wojcik, and sophomores Justice Ajogbor, Josh Hemmings and Samuel Silverstein.
- Seniors Kale Catchings and Mason Forbes are this season's co-captains and both have been in the news over the last 14 months. Catchings was named to the NABC Player Development Coalition in August 2020, while Forbes earned his way onto the 2021 NABC Community Assist Team. Both were also 2020-21 NABC Honors Court selections.
- After its season opener vs. Morehouse, Harvard will play three of its next four games on the road, all of which will take place in New York (Iona, Albany, Siena). The lone outlier is a home contest vs. MIT on Nov. 20.
- Following its road outing at Siena on Nov. 22, Harvard will play six of its next seven at Lavietes Pavilion. All seven games, however, will occur within state lines as the one road contest will be at UMass on Dec. 4.
At the Helm
Tommy Amaker, The Thomas G. Stemberg '71 Family Endowed Coach for Harvard Men's Basketball, is beginning his 15th season at Harvard. He is the winningest coach in Crimson history with 251 victories and has led the program to seven Ivy League titles and eight postseason appearances.
Up Next
The Crimson will travel to Iona to face the Gaels on Saturday for a 1 p.m. ET contest that will air on ESPN3.
