Keith Wright had to choose between Princeton or Harvard. He received interest from a number of schools but narrowed his choices down to two of the country’s best universities. But Wright was choosing based on basketball.

Of the two schools, Princeton’s program is more renowned. The Tigers have made 23 NCAA Tournament appearances in school history, compared to Harvard’s one. Princeton even made it to the Final Four once.

But Wright chose Harvard.

He said his decision came down to his desire to do something special for his school. More specifically, he wanted to get Harvard to the NCAA Tournament. The last time that happened was in the middle of World War II, and even then the squad did not make it past the first game.

‘When we were recruited, they were saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be so awesome to make history?” Wright said. ‘That was really the selling point for me. And why I chose to come here is to accomplish what is right in front of us, which is really to win the Ivy League championship and go to the tournament.’

Sixty-five years later, the tournament is again beginning to look like a possibility for the Crimson (21-5). The team is second to Princeton in the Ivy League. Harvard has only two games left to secure the top spot in the league and a berth into the tournament. To do so, Wright and Co. will have to avoid the recent defensive breakdowns that have plagued the squad of late.

The first of Harvard’s two conference losses was to Princeton. The Crimson dominated the first half, leading by as many as 11 points and preserving a lead for the duration of the half. Yet the Tigers took control of the second half, quickly turning the lead around. They kept Harvard at arm’s length through the end of the game, winning 65-61.

‘We had that game in our hands, and we kind of let it go,’ Wright said. ‘We’ve been really focusing on playing with a lead. We need to learn how to play with a lead.’

In the following game against Pennsylvania, the Crimson blew an 18-point lead. The game ended up going into two overtimes, although Harvard pulled out an 83-82 win.

The problem in these games was a lack of focus as a team, Wright said. With the lead, the players lost the sense of team urgency and relaxed into a more selfish state.

Yet since that early game, the young team has settled into a better rhythm, winning six of its last seven games. Junior Oliver McNally said the team just needed time to come together.

‘We’re still young, and we’re still gelling together,’ McNally said. ‘So I think as the season’s gone on and we’ve gotten more game time and more practice time, we’ve just gotten better at it.’

Harvard’s run in the Ivy League has pushed perennial forces Penn and Cornell further down the standings. In part, this is a comment on the strength of the league as a whole. Although its teams are still not breaking the Top 25 polls on a regular basis, Cornell, the conference champion from a year ago, did make a run into the Sweet 16 last year.

This season, however, Cornell is 4-8 in conference play and is hovering at seventh in the eight-team league. Austin Morgan, a sophomore guard at Yale, said games are often much closer than they appear in the rankings.

‘There’s a lot of parity in the Ivy League,’ Morgan said. ‘One of the things is that the teams’ records aren’t always a good indication of how close the teams are.’

The Ivy League doesn’t have a conference tournament, so for Harvard, these final regular-season games are even more important. The Crimson is coming off its second loss in the Ivy League to Yale on Saturday. McNally said the team had a few of those mental lapses on defense, which made the difference in the 70-69 loss.

If the Crimson is to control its own destiny, it now must win both of its remaining games to win the league. Although winning the league will be a big step for Harvard, McNally said the team’s ultimate goal is to advance deep in the tournament and make history at some point.

‘Everything’s been done at Harvard,’ McNally said. ‘It’s pretty tough to do anything here that hasn’t been done already.’

alguggen@syr.edu