Tommy Amaker, Harvard Aren't Going To See The Hardwood This Season
Tommy Amaker played collegiality at Duke where he was a four year starter where he was their point guard!
When?
From 1983-1987!
During his time in a Duke uniform Tommy Amaker led the team to the 1986 NCAA title game before earning All-America honors and recognition as the nation’s top defensive player in his senior year of 1987. But that isn’t the only thing he did at Duke as Tommy Amaker was an Associate Head Coach as well as an assistant for his college alma mater where he won two NCAA championships and advanced to five Final Fours as an assistant and associate head coach including nine years as a graduate assistant, assistant coach and associate head coach at Duke, working for legendary head coach Mike Krzyzewski. He was an assistant on two NCAA championship teams with the Blue Devils (1991, ’92) and helped Duke to three other Final Fours in eight NCAA tournament appearances. Duke was a combined 230-80 in Amaker’s nine years on the Blue Devils coaching staff.
On April 13, 2007 Tommy Amaker was introduced as the Head Coach Of Harvard following six seasons as head coach at Michigan and four at the helm of Seton Hall. Amaker owns a 427-278 career record: 251-139 at Harvard, 108-84 at Michigan and 68-55 at Seton Hall. He has earned numerous Coach of the Year awards, including the 2013 Clarence "Big House" Gaines College Basketball Coach of the Year Award, presented to the top minority basketball coach in NCAA Division I. In 2012, he was presented with district coach of the year awards from both the United States Basketball Writers Association and National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was a candidate for the AP National Coach of the Year. He has also been named a finalist for the Ben Jobe Award six times (2011-15, 2019), and the Hugh Durham Award three times (2011, 2012, 2015). In June 2020, he was named The James Herscot '58 Coach of Excellence, becoming the fifth recipient in Harvard history.
With Amaker at the helm, Harvard student-athletes have garnered seven All-America honors, 14 All-District distinctions and 35 all-conference accolades. Additionally, Keith Wright '12 (2012), Wesley Saunders ’15 (2014) and Seth Towns (2018) have been named Ivy League Player of the Year, Steve Moundou-Missi ’15 (2015) and Agunwa Okolie ’16 (2016) have garnered defensive-player-of-the-year plaudits, with Kyle Casey ’13-14 (2010), Siyani Chambers ’16-17 (2013), Bryce Aiken (2017) and Noah Kirkwood (2019) earning rookie-of-the-year honors.
Harvard has garnered the attention of the nation with eight postseason appearances in the last 11 years, but Amaker's teams have long been making headlines, with each season bringing more program milestones. Some of the highlights:
A 208-95 (.686) overall record since 2009-10, ranking as the 25th-highest win percentage in the NCAA over the last 10 seasons (entering 2019-20)
A 110-18 (.859) home record since 2009-10, ranking as the 15th-highest home-court win percentage in the NCAA over the last 10 seasons (entering 2019-20)
Four straight NCAA tournament appearances (2012, ’13, ’14, ’15), becoming just the third program in Ancient Eight history with at least four straight NCAA bids
Five consecutive Ivy League championships (2011, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15), becoming just the second program in Ancient Eight history with at least five straight titles
Six straight seasons with 20 wins and a postseason appearance (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15), tying the longest streak in Ivy League history for 20-win seasons
Harvard’s first appearance in a major national poll, ranking as high as No. 21 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 22 in the Associated Press Top 25 in 2011-12
Harvard’s first appearance in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25, ranking No. 25 in 2014-15
The seven highest single-season win totals in program history (27-5 in 2013-14, 26-5 in 2011-12, 23-7 in 2010-11, 22-8 in 2014-15, 21-8 in 2009-10 and 2019-20, and 20-10 in 2012-13)
Two wins in the NCAA tournament (68-62 vs. No. 3 New Mexico, March 21, 2013; 61-57 vs. No. 5 Cincinnati, March 20, 2014), Harvard’s first two NCAA tournament wins.
Harvard’s first win in the NIT (71-68 vs. Georgetown, March 20, 2019)
28-game home winning streak from 2010-12
2013 Great Alaska Shootout tournament champions
2011 Battle 4 Atlantis tournament champions
18 wins against power-conference opponents, with an 8-6 record against Atlantic Coast Conference teams
Four wins against ranked teams
Earned berths in the first four Ivy League tournaments
Fifteen (15) first team All-Ivy League selections, four Ivy League Rookies of the Year (Kyle Casey '13-14, Siyani Chambers '16-17, Bryce Aiken ’20 and Noah Kirkwood ’22), two Ivy League Defensive Players of the Year (Steve Moundou-Missi ’15 & Agunwa Okolie ’16), three Ivy League Players of the Year (Keith Wright ’12, Wesley Saunders '15 & Seth Towns ’20), and one NBA signee (Jeremy Lin ’10).
Among Amaker’s career achievements:
427-278 record (.606)
14 postseason appearances
2004 NIT championship
Five NCAA tournament appearances, including 2000 Sweet Sixteen
Coached six NBA players
A season ago, the Crimson reached the 20-win plateau for the first time since 2014-15, finishing with a 21-8 record. On the way to its fifth-highest win total in program history, Harvard defeated Power-5 conference foes Texas A&M and California, and enjoyed a pair of lengthy winning streaks (8 games and 6 games). The Crimson earned a berth to the Ivy League Tournament after a runner-up finish in the regular season, but the league and university canceled the event and eventually the rest of the spring schedule, effectively ending the campaign. Despite the abrupt finish, Harvard had a first-team all-Ivy selection in Noah Kirkwood, while Chris Lewis, who completed his career as the school's all-time leader in blocked shots and field goal percentage, garnered second-team accolades.
In 2018-19, Harvard earned the Ivy League championship, its second straight and seventh in nine seasons. Bryce Aiken was a unanimous all-Ivy League first team selection, while Noah Kirkwood became Harvard’s fourth Ivy League Rookie of the Year under Amaker. The Crimson capped the 2018-19 season with its second-straight trip to the NIT, where it earned the first win in the event in program history, over Georgetown (71-68).
The Crimson captured its sixth Ivy League crown in program history in 2017-18, each coming under Amaker, and earned its second-ever berth to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). Seth Towns capped a tremendous season as the Ivy League Player of the Year and All-America selection, while Chris Lewis and Justin Bassey also garnered All-Ivy recognition. With a victory over Dartmouth on Jan. 20, Amaker became the fifth head coach in Ivy League history to reach 200 wins at an Ivy program, doing it the second-fastest in the conference’s history.
Harvard capped the 2016-17 season with an appearance in the inaugural Ivy League tournament. The Crimson - the 10th-youngest team according to KenPom rankings - finished 18-10 overall, including a 10-4 mark in Ancient Eight play. On Dec. 7, 2016, Amaker became the all-time winningest men's basketball coach in Harvard history, surpassing the previous mark with a 74-66 win at Boston College. Amaker also ended the season as the all-time leader at Harvard in Ivy wins (94).
In 2014-15, Harvard finished the regular season tied with Yale for the Ancient Eight crown. The Crimson defeated the Bulldogs in a one-game playoff for the right to represent the Ivy League in the NCAA tournament, where it fell to fourth-seeded North Carolina, 67-65, despite taking a 65-63 lead with 1:15 to play. Harvard also completed its second straight season sweep of traditional Ivy powers Penn and Princeton during the regular season, becoming the first program in conference history to do in consecutive years.
In 2013-14, the 12th-seeded Crimson knocked off fifth-seeded Cincinnati in the tournament's second round, and nearly pulled off an upset of fourth-seeded Michigan State to reach the Sweet 16. Harvard finished the year with a 27-5 overall record and a 13-1 mark in the Ivy League, setting program bests for both overall victories and conference victories, and also captured the title at the Great Alaska Shootout along the way. Additionally, a record six Crimson were named to the All-Ivy League teams, including player of the year Wesley Saunders '15.
A year earlier, Harvard earned a historic win in the NCAA tournament as the 14th-seeded Crimson upset third-seeded New Mexico, which was ranked 10th nationally. The victory was the first by the Crimson against a top-10 opponent and left Harvard among the nation’s top 32 teams at season’s end. The 2012-13 season also saw Amaker become the fourth head coach to win 100 games at Harvard, reaching that milestone on Jan. 5, 2013, when the Crimson defeated Rice, 92-62.
A win in the NCAA tournament was a natural progression after the 2011-12 season, perhaps the best overall campaign in program history and the first in which the Crimson claimed sole possession of the Ivy title. En route to ending its 66-year NCAA tournament drought, Harvard debuted in the national rankings, climbing as high as No. 21 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and No. 22 in the Associated Press poll. Finishing 26-5, Harvard eclipsed the program's previous record for wins for the third straight year and matched the previous season’s program-best 12-2 Ivy mark. The Crimson also won the inaugural Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, with wins against Utah, No. 20 Florida State and UCF.
For his effort, Amaker was named the USBWA and NABC district coach of the year, as well as the College Insider Ivy League Coach of the Year. Amaker was also tabbed a finalist for the Ben Jobe Award and the Hugh Durham Award for coaching and was selected as a candidate for the AP National Coach of the Year. He received the NABC, College Insider, Jobe and Durham recognitions for the second straight year.
Harvard’s first Ivy crown came in 2010-11, when the Crimson went 23-7, tied Princeton at 12-2 in league play, set a program record with 14 home wins and made its first NIT appearance. The 23 wins briefly held as the program standard, erasing the 21 victories from 2009-10 from the top spot. That 2009-10 campaign ended in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament, Harvard’s first postseason berth since 1946.
Amaker’s first two seasons showed signs of the great achievements to come. The 2008-09 freshman class was tabbed as one of the nation’s 25 best recruiting classes by ESPN, an accolade never before bestowed upon an Ivy League institution. The Crimson went on to post a victory at No. 17 Boston College. The marquee win in Amaker’s debut season of 2007-08 was a 62-51 victory over Michigan—Amaker’s former team—on national television.
“according to Tommy Amaker’s biography on gocrimson.com
During the 2020-2021 season though, Tommy Amaker and Harvard who last season finished with a record of 21-8 10-4 in the Ivy League won’t see the hardwood!
Why?
Because the Ivy League has cancelled winter sports including Men’s Basketball!
Why?
Because of the Coronavirus that is currently effecting us in the United States and around the world! “according to an article by Jeff Borzello on espn.com