Harvard Opens Tommy Amaker's 20th Season Tonight Against MIT With Four Starters Back and the Ivy League's Top Recruit

Harvard men's basketball opens its 2026-27 season tonight at 7 at Lavietes Pavilion against MIT, the first of 14 non-conference games before Ivy League play, according to Harvard Athletics and The Harvard Crimson. The game streams on ESPN+.

Harvard has won 18 straight games against MIT and its last eight season openers, Harvard Athletics said. The Crimson enter ranked 12th in the CollegeInsider Mid-Major Top 25 and second in the Ivy League preseason poll, with seven first-place votes, behind defending tournament champion Penn.

Tommy Amaker begins his 20th season as head coach. Harvard returns four starters: junior guard Robert Hinton, a unanimous first-team All-Ivy pick last season; co-captain forward Thomas Batties II, a second-team selection; and junior guards Tey Barbour and Ben Eisendrath, The Crimson reported. The four combined to average 129.2 minutes per game last season, and Hinton, Batties and Barbour each averaged at least 12 points and four rebounds.

"Bringing as many guys back as we did, you just feel really confident in the culture and the chemistry that we have," Batties told The Crimson.

The lone departed starter, guard Chandler Piggé, signed with Manchester Basketball in England. Junior guard Austin Hunt, who missed most of last season with an injury and did not play in the exhibition, could return.

Harvard's five-player freshman class is led by Jason Singleton, the highest-ranked incoming recruit in the Ivy League and Amaker's eighth four-star signee in 15 years, according to The Crimson. In the Oct. 23 exhibition against UMass, Singleton led Harvard with 23 points and six rebounds in 24 minutes.

Amaker said the season will still turn on veterans. "I really believe that your years usually go as your veterans go, and we can't count on or think that we're going to be able to depend on young guys to carry you all the way through," he said.

Harvard went 10-4 in the Ivy League last season and lost the tournament semifinal in overtime to Penn, the eventual champion. This season's Ivy Madness tournament will be played at Penn's Palestra for the arena's 100th anniversary, and the winner gets the league's automatic NCAA bid. Harvard has not made the NCAA Tournament since its four straight appearances from 2012 to 2015.

Penn, picked first, is in its second year under Fran McCaffery and is led by senior TJ Power, who scored 44 points in last season's conference championship. Yale, picked third, lost four of five starters but added Connor May, a two-time conference MVP at Washington University in St. Louis, The Crimson reported.

After MIT, Harvard plays four straight road games, then faces Boston College in mid-November, its only power-conference opponent besides Duke, Amaker's alma mater, on Dec. 4. Harvard also plays Saint Mary's late in the non-conference schedule.

Across the river, Northeastern opens at Boston University at 7, the 154th meeting of that rivalry. Coverage is in our Sports section.