Examining the Soul of Harvard Basketball

Monmouth's Austin Tillotson lofts a shot over the Harvard defense. As I drove toward the Monmouth Athletic Center on a mild January night, I certainly did not expect to be ruminating on the soul of the Harvard basketball team. Harvard has received all sorts of national accolades this season on its way to a 12-2 start, while Monmouth had struggled to a 3-13 mark under new head coach King Rice. While the Hawks had shown clear improvement in their last two games, not even the Monmouth faithful were expecting a close game. Yet with 15 minutes to go in the second half, after another Monmouth run had cut the Harvard lead to four, I was prompted to wonder about the soul of Harvard basketball. The questioner was John Gasaway, Basketball Prospectus writer, stathead extraordinaire and my company for the game. He turned to me and said, “Plays out of timeouts are a window into the soul of a basketball team. So tell me, John, what will [coach Tommy] Amaker run?” In his time at Harvard, Tomm...