Harvard Crimson

The Harvard Crimson play at Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and became one of the Ivy League's most talked-about programs during a remarkable run in the early 2010s. For a school long associated with academics over athletics, Harvard's basketball breakthrough was a genuine national story. The Crimson built a reputation for physical, well-recruited rosters that could compete with high-major programs on a given night. Harvard remains a modern measuring stick for what Ivy League basketball can achieve.

Harvard went decades without an NCAA Tournament appearance before breaking through in 2012, sharing its first Ivy League title since 1957 in 2010-11 behind star guard Jeremy Lin's successor roster, then winning it outright in 2011-12 with a 26-4 record. That 2012 bid ended a 66-year NCAA Tournament drought. The Crimson followed up in 2012-13 by winning the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament game, upsetting third-seeded New Mexico. Harvard added additional Ivy League titles across the first half of the 2010s, establishing the longest sustained run of success in program history.