If you were a Harvard fan and I told you there was bigger sports news than Linsanity and the Crimson's first ticket to the Big Dance since 1946, would you believe me? Unlikely, but it is true. While on the surface it may not seem groundbreaking, 2013 basketball prospect Zena Edosomwan's commitment to the Crimson is about to completely change the landscape of Ivy League sports.
While the Harvard men's basketball team was waiting to hear its name called and figure out who and where it was playing in this year's NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday, coach Tommy Amaker was working. There was no time for Amaker to bask in the glory of winning the regular season Ivy League title, or to be satisfied with earning the school's first automatic bid to participate in March Madness in over 60 years. Amaker wants more than Ivy League championships for Harvard he wants national championships. That's why Amaker was on the phone with Edosomwan on Sunday morning, receiving a commitment from a top 100 recruit for the first time in Ivy League sports history.
If that wasn't enough to sell you on the magnitude of this commitment, Edosomwan shunned the likes of UCLA, USC, Cal, Texas, Wake Forest, Washington, Arizona, Notre Dame and others to play ball in Cambridge. And those were full-ride athletic scholarship offers. That said, like all other Ivies, Harvard does offer need-based financial aid that Edosomwan will receive if he qualifies for it. However, unlike other Ivies, Harvard has been rumored to be tinkering with their academic standards for recruited athletes, and this could be very bad news for the rest of the conference.
While there hasn't been an official investigation, there have been allegations that Harvard has been lowering its academic standards for recruited athletes dating back to four years ago. In a 2008 New York Times article, Harvard's Director of Athletics Bob Scalise admitted that the Crimson was pursuing recruits with lower academic credentials. Even though Scalise's statement raised some eyebrows within the Ivy League, Amaker continuously denies that Harvard's academic standards have been compromised. On Wednesday, one day before Harvard's second round match-up with the "Ivy of the South," Vanderbilt, Amaker told Fox Sports' Thayer Evans that he can't imagine Harvard's academic credibility ever changing: "Our standards are incredibly high and challenging as they always have been."
The real kicker with the Edosomwan commitment is that he is going to extra lengths to attend Harvard. Even though Edosomwan goes to one of the top high schools in the country (my alma mater), Harvard-Westlake, Edosomwan currently does not have the grades or SAT scores to meet Harvard's minimum Academic Index of 176. Edosomwan is reclassifying as a class of 2013 recruit and enrolling in Northfield Mount Herman prep school to get his grades up. Edosomwan "has been determined to attend Harvard since he visited the campus in late September," according to The Harvard Crimson. The 6'9", 220-pound power-forward is ranked in the top 100 nationally on ESPN and received a scout's grade of 92 overall. Due to the gap year, Edosomwan will not be in Cambridge next year to replace leading scorer and rebounder Keith Wright, but I can assure you his presence will be felt throughout the Ivy League as soon as he steps onto the hardwood in 2013.
If other schools in the Ivy League do not take notice of what's brewing in Cambridge, the Crimson could turn into a basketball juggernaut fast. The time for Dartmouth and other Ivies to look into lowering the academic prestige of their athletes without breaking any rules is now. What Harvard is giving up in academic expectations for student-athletes it is making up for in terms of school spirit, revenue and applicants. When Harvard was ranked in the Top 25 this year and squared off against UConn, the defending national champions, on national television, Harvard graduate and producer of ABC's hit show "Lost" Carlton Cuse wrote an article for ESPN's Grantland about how excited he was to root for his alma mater.
It is almost unthinkable to imagine Dartmouth being ranked in the Top 25 after a third consecutive eighth-place Ivy League finish. If we don't act now and catch up to Harvard and start going after top recruits, we could permanently be left behind. There is growing parity in NCAA men's basketball with the superstars leaving early to go to the NBA draft. Imagine the Big Green as Cinderella think about how exciting that would be. It's time for the rest of the Ivy League to swallow its pride and follow the blueprint that Coach Amaker has laid out. Bend without breaking the rules. Edosomwan's commitment is a warning signal to the rest of the league, and the change needs to be made now, before it's too late.
