Recruiting News

Below, some recruiting news from around the Ivy League...

This weekend Cornell is hosting one of its top frontcourt prospects.

Dekeeba “Keeba” Battee-Aston, is a 6'8" 230 lb. Australian power forward at national power Findlay Prep School. The Las Vegas Sun reports that his mother would like him to attend an Ivy League school.

Eastland, Texas 6'9" center, Forrest Robinson will visit Texas Tech for the second time this month according to TexasHoops.com. The 2011 prospect is drawing interest from Penn and Stanford while he already holds scholarship offers from Texas Tech, Louisiana Tech, Iowa State, Centenary, North Texas and Utah.

NJHoops.com reports that 6'5" forward, John Caprio of Seton Hall Prep School in West Orange, New Jersey is hearing from Ivy and Patriot schools.

Scout.com and Rivals.com both report that 6'7" forward Josh Huestis of Great Falls, Montana, committed to Stanford over offers from Harvard, Santa Clara, Montana and Montana State. He told Scout, "I just had a feeling inside me that Stanford was the best fit for me on and off the court."

We will get back to this comment from Huestis.

As it stands now for the Crimson, two of Harvard's remaining top prospects, Majok Majok, a 6'8" forward and Pe'Shon Howard, a 6'2" guard are both expected to wait until the spring before committing to a college. Harvard is reportedly on both players' college lists. However, both prospects also reportedly require substantial improvement in their standard test scores (i.e. the SAT) if they plan on playing in the Ivy League or similar programs with stringent admissions requirements. It will be very interesting to see if these two prospects are granted admission by Harvard because the school recently received significant negative publicity and criticism concerning its lowered academic standards and recruiting tactics for basketball recruits.

But even more interesting is how the recruiting bubble has seem to burst for Harvard. This program spent the last year plus hyping their recruiting efforts, socializing with basketball journalists, using the media as a vehicle to get the Harvard name "out there" and on published lists of schools involved with certain high profile recruits.

But was this involvement real? For the last eight weeks, Harvard has watched every single one of these recruits flatly reject the Crimson as a college choice. And despite Harvard's generously offered financial aid packages to these recruits (which in many cases were akin to full scholarship offers) and extended academic admission to a school that views itself as the best education in the world, these recruits still chose to enroll elsewhere. But why?

While we applaud Harvard's efforts, the reality is that Harvard remains a long-shot to land any elite level basketball talent. It is a program without any historical success in the Ivy League (it never won a league championship). The Crimson also have virtually no fan base (a function of the culture of the studious and academically driven student body) and the school offers players subpar athletic facilities. With dozens of schools offering comparable or better educations, including the other seven Ivy League schools, and more successful basketball programs and better facilities, we just do not see Harvard's recruiting strategy as viable.

This is exactly what Josh Huestis meant when he said, "I just had a feeling inside me that Stanford was the best fit for me on and off the court." Harvard does not offer the "academic-basketball balance" that any top recruit is seeking. In short, Harvard is not Duke, Stanford or even Cornell.

The Harvard program should focus instead on solid mid major prospects and try to build a winning tradition and a fan base before it aims so high. You need to learn to walk, before you learn to run. Right now, Harvard just did a face plant two steps out of the gate.

Fielding a successful collegiate basketball team starts before any players ever step on the court. The quality of the facilities, the amount of support given by the admissions office, and the development of a student and local fan base all signal a program’s emphasis on winning... you know that Harvard’s facilities rank in the bottom half of the league... [Harvard's] Lavietes best strikes one as a high school gym, not only by its size, but also with the relative lack of buzz or excitement felt inside it... the Harvard basketball program makes little attempt to sell itself to the students and cultivate a fan base.

--The Harvard Crimson student newspaper

Below, a look at the last eleven seasons of Harvard basketball.

1998-1999-- 13-13 (7-7 Ivy, 4th place) Frank Sullivan
1999-2000-- 12-15 (7-7 Ivy, 3rd place) Frank Sullivan
2000-2001-- 14-12 (7-7 Ivy, 4th place) Frank Sullivan
2001-2002-- 14-12 (7-7 Ivy, 5th place) Frank Sullivan
2002-2003-- 12-15 (4-10 Ivy, 5th place) Frank Sullivan
2003-2004-- 4-23 (3-11 Ivy, 7th place) Frank Sullivan
2004-2005-- 12-15 (7-7 Ivy, 3rd place) Frank Sullivan
2005-2006-- 13-14 (5-9 Ivy, 6th place) Frank Sullivan
2006-2007-- 12-16 (5-9 Ivy, 6th place) Frank Sullivan

2007-2008-- 8-22 (3-11 Ivy, 6th place) Tommy Amaker
2008-2009--14-14 (6-8 Ivy, 6th place) Tommy Amaker