2023 Men's Top 30: How Harvard Fared vs. Projections

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2024, our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking one last look at 2023.

After all, you have to look at the most recent results before making projections for what’s to come. To do that, we’re taking a journey through the top 30 teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse — what went right, what went wrong and what we should all think of that team’s season.

Was it a success? A failure? A mixture of both? You’ll find out our thoughts over the next month or so.

HARVARD MEN’S LACROSSE

Nike/USA Lacrosse Preseason/Final Top 20 Ranking: 15/Unranked
2023 record: 5-7 (2-4 Ivy League)

WHAT WENT RIGHT

The Crimson put together a strong defensive game April 8, stymieing Cornell on the way to a 10-8 victory that plausibly put them a victory away from an Ivy League tournament berth. Attackman Sam King (31 G, 25 A) built on a strong freshman year to earn second team all-Ivy honors. Six of the seven teams Harvard fell to were in the hunt for an NCAA tournament berth entering the final three days of the season.

WHAT WENT WRONG

While the Crimson weren’t relying on quite as many freshmen as they did when they made a surprise NCAA tournament appearance in 2022, Harvard still was quite young. Harvard became the first Ivy League team to lose to Dartmouth since 2015, effectively making the math more difficult for a repeat NCAA trip. And with Penn, Princeton and Yale to close out the regular season, the Crimson yielded 15.3 goals a game to sink under .500.

SEASON HIGHLIGHT

Christian Barnard made 16 saves in the upset of Cornell, giving the Crimson their first victory over the Big Red since 2016.

VERDICT

Progress isn’t always linear, and Harvard can attest to that after the way this spring went. The defensive numbers against high-end teams grabs some attention, but the Crimson also topped the 11-goal mark just once while going 2-5 in its last seven games. Harvard finished 53rd nationally in shooting percentage (.271) and 61st in faceoff percentage (.440), a combination that explains a lot of the season’s problems.