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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Tommy Amaker believes the possibilities are endless for his Harvard Crimson.

That shouldn't be surprising. What else do you expect him to say?

The Crimson won their third straight Ivy League title, played in their second straight NCAA tournament and won their first NCAA tourney game in 2012-13, even though they lost two key players before the season even started.

And now that the dust has settled for Harvard after a 74-51 loss to No. 6-seed Arizona in the third round of the NCAAs, it's time to look ahead to 2013-14.

The picture does look fairly rosy for the Crimson.

Amaker and his staff had to scramble in September when Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry withdrew from school after being implicated in an academic cheating scandal that involved more than 100 students.

Young players like Wesley Saunders, Steve Moundou-Missi and Kenyatta Smith had to take on larger roles than they would've, and freshman Siyani Chambers was thrust into the starting lineup at the point. Laurent Rivard and Christian Webster, the only senior on the roster and as such the only player the Crimson will lose this offseason, were named co-captains.

The coaches called it an opportunity and started a mantra that went like this: "We may not have what we had, but we have enough."

Did they ever.

In his postseason wrap-up session with the media Wednesday in the lounge at Lavietes Pavilion, Amaker said he wasn't surprised by the improvements players like Saunders and Chambers made.

"One of the things that you try not to do is have something as a cap, or what you think could be the ceiling of something," Amaker said. "I've learned that through the years: You learn to put your philosophy in and put your blueprint down and then who knows where this thing could go?

"We believe that being here at Harvard allows us that opportunity that anything is possible."

Without Casey and Curry, the Crimson offense actually improved. In 2011-12, the Crimson averaged 65.6 points per game, third in the Ivy League; in 2012-13, the Crimson averaged 68.3 points per game, first in the Ivy League.

Though the defense slipped a bit, falling from first in the Ivy (55.6 points allowed per game) to third (64.1 points allowed per game), the Crimson made up for it with better 3-point shooting (39.8 percent as a team, first in the Ivy, up from 35.7 percent, fifth).

Chambers won the Ivy Rookie of the Year award, and Saunders led the Ivy in scoring. And now the Crimson get to add Casey (former Ivy Rookie of the Year, Harvard's leading scorer in 2011-12) and Curry (Ivy leader in assist-to-turnover ratio and Harvard's assist leader in 2011-12) to the mix, along with top recruit Zena Edosomwan.

"They've been as good as anybody in our league when they were here," Amaker said of Casey and Curry. "So having those guys return -- we have open arms.

"And [we] can't be any more excited for their return, for them to come back and be a part of our program, our school, our community and to finish what they came here to do, which is to be a Harvard graduate. Those things are very exciting to think about."

As to how exactly the pair will fit in with the new dynamic (Curry and Chambers play the same position; Casey and Saunders both have proven they can be go-to scorers), Amaker wasn't sure. And at this point, he's not getting hung up on the details.

After all, the Crimson haven't even started their offseason workout program yet.

"I haven't given it as much thought, certainly as you can imagine, as to the pieces of the puzzle for our team, but we certainly know they're going to be good players," he said. "They've done that throughout their time here and I don't anticipate that changing in the least bit when we get those guys back."

How much of a difference might having those two players back make? It's hard to say for sure, but at the very least the addition lengthens the rotation and spreads the burden a little more broadly.

In 2011-12, Harvard didn't have a single player among the top 10 in the Ivy in minutes played; in 2012-13, Harvard had four players among the top 10, including three of the top 5 (Chambers, first, 37.8 minutes per game; Saunders, third, 37.3; Rivard, fifth, 35.4).

Though Amaker praised his players for being responsible and preserving their strength throughout the season -- hinting that often players get worn down as much for off-the-court activities as they do on the court -- and admitted the Crimson got lucky not to suffer any serious injuries, the shortened rotation had to affect the team's play at times.

"I think we've had moments this past season where we weren't as sharp, we weren't as good. And that's gonna happen," Amaker said. "But certainly we're hopeful that we can learn and grow from moments that we weren't as good, we weren't as ready. We certainly can do a lot better and be a lot better. We had a handful of games that we felt we controlled down the end and couldn't close."

Of the Crimson's 10 losses, six were by eight points or fewer.

"There are a lot of things there that I think we can certainly look toward as areas where we can get better," Amaker said. "The depth of our team, the roster, the different combination of things that we're hoping to be able to present next year, [all those are areas] that can be possibilities for us to be a better basketball team and program."

Perhaps, as Amaker said, the possibilities really are endless.

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.

SALT LAKE CITY -- When Siyani Chambers chose Harvard, he hoped to be the Crimson’s starting point guard ... someday.

He dreamed of leading his team on an NCAA tournament run ... someday.

The fact that someday is today?

“Amazing," the 6-foot Ivy League rookie of the year said Friday, less than 24 hours after 14th-seeded Harvard knocked off No. 3 New Mexico for the program’s first NCAA tournament victory.

That word could describe his development, too.

“He’s the leader on our team," said senior guard Christian Webster, whose team will face sixth-seeded Arizona on Saturday for the right to advance to the Sweet 16. “Laurent [Rivard] and I are the captains, but he’s the leader. He drove this team."

It’s a role the 19-year-old ball handler never expected, at least not this soon, when he arrived on Harvard’s campus less than a year ago. First recruited by Crimson coach Tommy Amaker when he was in the eighth grade, Chambers decided pretty quickly that he wanted to play for the former Duke guard because of what he could learn.

But Chambers also thought he would have some time to be a pupil, while playing behind Brandyn Curry, a Cousy award candidate last season. That is, until September, when Curry and fellow senior Kyle Casey withdrew from Harvard following an academic scandal.

When the freshman heard the news, his head spun. “I was definitely nervous -- very, very nervous," Chambers said. “All of a sudden, it’s your first year, you’re coming in trying to learn the whole process about everything: playing, dealing with school and basketball.”

To persevere, he said, he leaned on his teammates -- and they leaned back, looking for the vocal freshman to glue together a team whose chances of winning the Ivy League all of a sudden seemed precarious, at best.

But Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball exceeded expectations probably because he had no other choice, gaining confidence (and his team’s confidence in him) by becoming a steady assist man and scorer early; he even hit the game-winning basket with four seconds left against Boston University on Dec. 11.

“He’s a special kid, and certainly he plays basketball in a special way, and I think you get excited when you watch him play," Amaker said. “I know when we recruited him, we wanted him to play in that manner; sometimes I thought he held himself back a little bit, and I told him if you ever come to play for us ... we want you to be dazzling because you’re capable of it.”

His season stats -- 12.6 points and 5.8 assists per game -- were dazzling enough to make him the first freshman named first-team All-Ivy League.

But the way he melded his team dazzled, too. Sophomore Wesley Saunders emerged as a go-to scorer (16.5 PPG). Rivard became a scary outside threat (five 3s against the Lobos on Thursday). Kenyatta Smith and Steve Moundou-Missi improved in the post. Harvard finished the regular season 19-9, winning the Ivy League.

So maybe it was fitting that as the seconds ticked down on Harvard's historic upset Thursday, Chambers was the one with the ball in his hands, grinning and carefully watching the clock. That moment is a feat the Crimson hope to repeat against another bigger, more heralded team Saturday.

And one Chambers never imagined when he thought about his goals a year ago.

“I just wanted to come in and learn as much as possible, so when it was my time I could step in and be able to contribute to the game," he said, remembering. “... When I first decided to come here, I did not think this is what I would be stepping into.

“But I’m glad I came here, and I’m glad this happened.”

Now.

SALT LAKE CITY NEWS AND NOTES

SAFETY FIRST: One teammate compared Wichita State sophomore Tekele Cotton to a strong safety. Shockers coach Gregg Marshall? He thinks the guard is more like a free safety.

Whatever the football analogy, you get the picture: The 6-2, 202-pound athlete is hard-nosed, hard-bodied and hard-focused on making stops. And if he can stymie a certain Gonzaga player like he did Pittsburgh guard Tray Woodall on Thursday (the senior was brought to tears after his 1-for-12, two-point performance), Cotton knows his team has a better chance to upset the No. 1 team in the country.

“I look forward to being that guy, to chase around their player like I did yesterday," said Cotton, who is also averaging 6.3 points and 3.9 rebounds per game this season. “So I look forward to chasing around Kevin Pangos. I have no problem with it; I enjoy it.”

Pangos, the Zags’ standout sophomore guard, is averaging 11.6 points per game this season and scored the final five points in top-seeded Gonzaga’s six-point survival against 16th-seeded Southern on Thursday. He said the key to competing with a physical team such as the ninth-seeded Shockers is to be physical right back.

“We don’t shy away from that; our team is tough," Pangos said. “We don’t back down from that at all.”

This should be an interesting matchup. The Shockers held Pitt to 35.2 percent shooting from the field -- and just 5.9 percent on 3-pointers. The Zags are third in the nation in field-goal percentage, making 50.4 percent of their shots.

NO ALARM HERE: Zags coach Mark Few wasn’t particularly rattled that the game against Southern went down to the wire; a win is a win is a win right now.

“At this point of the year, I don’t think we need to worry about aesthetics or, you know, differences," he said. “I know it’s cliché, ‘survive and advance,’ but there really is no other alternative. We’re not getting style points and we’re not getting graded -- you know, you either win or your season is over.”

QUOTE-WORTHY: “We know we’re in for a fight, especially the confidence that they have. When you win a game like that, it doesn’t just all of a sudden leave you; many times it carries through for the rest of the weekend. For us, it’s not about being consumed with Harvard, as much as it is about being consumed with ourselves, making sure we’re ready to go.” -- Arizona coach Sean Miller

SALT LAKE CITY -- A year ago, Harvard guard Laurent Rivard was in awe just seeing the midcourt NCAA logo; after all, the Crimson hadn’t made the tournament in six decades.

So helping the program to its first tournament victory -- a 68-62 win over No. 3 New Mexico that marked the biggest seed upset by an Ivy League team?

That, he said, was indescribable. Although he tried: “You imagine it … it’s something everyone dreams about,” Rivard said after scoring 17 points and going 5-for-9 from 3-point range, “but it’s a different feeling when it actually becomes real.”

The win seemed improbable for a plethora of reasons: The Lobos (29-6) were bigger (7-footer Alex Kirk finished with 22 points and 12 rebounds), and more seasoned by playing in a conference many considered one of the nation’s toughest. Heck, some even thought UNM was robbed by the tournament committee when it didn’t earn higher than a No. 3 seed.

But Harvard countered with a four-guard lineup that was sharpshooting (52.4 percent overall, including 8-for-18 from 3-point land) and that frustrated Lobos leading scorer Kendall Williams into a forgettable, 1-for-6 night. Led by their tallest starter, 6-foot-8 Kenyatta Smith, the Crimson also aggressively banged with Kirk and 6-9 Cameron Bairstow (15 points, nine rebounds).

“We knew they were going to be tough,” Smith said. “We just had to be confident.”

And they were, particularly down the stretch.

New Mexico, trailing for most of the game, took a 53-52 lead with 6:26 left on yet another Kirk inside move. But Harvard, even with its three bigger guys in foul trouble, countered with a 7-0 run -- beginning with another 3 from Rivard and including a jumper from guard Wesley Saunders (18 points) -- to rebuild its cushion. The Lobos never got closer than four after that.

“For me to see the composure that we had is meaningful to me as a coach,” Harvard’s Tommy Amaker said. “We had the lead. We lost the lead. We had to make plays and to have an answer each time when things got really tight there. We had to make pressure free throws. … But we didn’t wilt or cave in.”

Somehow, the Crimson (20-9) didn’t seem to feel the pressure of being a No. 14 seed on the brink of making history.

“I was just playing in the moment, enjoying the moment,” freshman point guard Siyani Chambers said. “… It felt like, just getting here, was our night.”

Indeed, not long ago it seemed like a long shot that the Crimson would make the tournament at all -- much less advance to the round of 32.

First there were the offseason academic problems that led the team’s co-captains -- Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry -- to withdraw from school.

And although those departures gave Chambers (5 points, 7 assists in 40 minutes Thursday) the opportunity to develop more quickly, the team wasn’t quite the runaway favorite it might have been to dominate the Ivy League -- as evidenced by back-to-back road losses at Princeton and Penn in early March.

Yet the Crimson endured. And prevailed.

And forget about last year’s awe-inspiring NCAA logo. Now, there’s a new daydream: the Sweet Sixteen.

“Before this, we wanted to be the Cinderella story,” Smith said. “And I guess now, we kind of are.”

NEWTON, Mass. -- While practice doesn’t officially begin for another few days, it’s clear that Harvard basketball is trying to move on after what should have been a triumphant offseason turned trying.

Coming off their first NCAA tournament appearance in 65 years, the program’s first outright Ivy League title and a trip to Italy in August, the Crimson figured to be riding high into the start of practice on Friday. But then came the news that a cheating scandal on the Harvard campus potentially involved members of the men’s basketball team, including co-captains Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry.

To protect their eligibility, Casey and Curry reportedly decided to withdraw from school while attempting to fight the charges that they were involved in a plagiarism scandal in a class called “Introduction to Congress.”

When the six Division I men’s basketball coaches gathered at Boston College for the second annual Massachusetts basketball media day on Tuesday, Crimson coach Tommy Amaker didn’t have to wait long for the questions.

But he wasn’t talking.

“I know you guys have a job to do when it comes to these kind of things, and I hope you respect that I have one as well,” he said, after the first question about the scandal. “Because of the privacy laws and out of respect for the process and the many, many students that are involved in this, I’m not allowed to comment, to speak. Only the highest officials at our university will have any direct statements or comments regarding the situation on our campus.”

That’s been the party line all along, and for Amaker it makes sense. Casey, Curry and little-used reserves Dee Giger and Matt Brown aren’t on the roster for the 2012-13 season, so the coach isn’t going to talk about them specifically.

Instead, the Crimson coach will focus on who he does have on the roster.

“We’re excited about this season,” Amaker said. “We’re looking forward to the challenges that every new year can bring, with different combinations, different lineups and the loss of seniors and incorporating younger players.”

Amaker, in his sixth season in Cambridge, said the roster turnover isn’t necessarily different than it ever is.

“Every season is a new season, regardless of who you have returning from one year to the next. Every year is a new year,” he said. “Kids change, roles can be redefined. So we’re excited for that process to continue.

“That’s how we’ve always approached every season.”

Of course, Harvard has never had a season like last year's. With senior co-captains Keith Wright and Oliver McNally providing leadership and juniors Casey (leading scorer at 11.4 points per game) and Curry (leading assist man with 4.9 per game) providing much of the production on the court, the Crimson went 26-5 and earned the program’s first AP Top 25 ranking.

Though they lost to Vanderbilt in their first game in the NCAAs, the Crimson seemed poised to be at or near the top of the Ivy League for seasons to come. Now, though, there are serious questions facing them before practice has even started.

With the two multiyear captains graduated and the two would-be captains off the team, where will the leadership come from?

“I think every year you’re wondering about leadership, especially if you’ve had terrific leadership in the past and we did,” Amaker said. “So regardless of who we have or don’t have or how it shapes up for us, you’re always, until it actually occurs … as a coach you’re wondering.”

Amaker said more responsibility may fall to him this season.

“I may have to do more of leading our team,” he said. “I always remember Coach K talking about as a head coach you have to learn to give the team what it needs. That’s something I’ve always thought of going into each year.”

With Casey and Curry off the roster for 2012-13, Laurent Rivard and Christian Webster have been tabbed as co-captains.

“Those two guys are our captains for this season. And we’re excited to have them, obviously, in those roles,” Amaker said. “We think that whether they have the C next to their names [or not], we feel that they were gonna be leaders on our team and in our program, it’s something that I’m sure they’ll probably try to do a little bit more of in terms of a leadership role.”

And while the Crimson may not be picked to repeat as Ivy champions this season, as they almost assuredly would have been before the scandal, Amaker has never been one to worry about expectations. Expectations are an external thing, he likes to say, and the Crimson worry about something else.

“We have standards that we try to live by regardless of what outside thoughts or expectations may be,” he said. “And we really focus on that. … For us to maintain our standards would be the most important thing we could do.”

Not everything is going to go the way the Crimson want it to. Amaker knows that, and didn’t need this incident to teach him.

“There’ll be a cloudy day, maybe a rainy day and maybe a storm,” he said. “That’s the real world we live in. As long as we continue to teach, to lead and to serve we’re gonna feel good about who we are.”

Amaker said he doesn’t think the drama that began to unfold in late August, and no doubt will continue to unfold until there is some resolution, will be a distraction. The Crimson are focused on what they need to do now, he said, and will try to tune out the noise as best they can.

“We have what we have, we are who we are, and we’re excited about what’s in front of us and the opportunity for this team this year,” he said. “We’re proud of who we’ve been and what we’ve done. But we’re looking forward to this season for these kids and we’re gonna do the darnedest, the best we can to make it as successful as we can.

“As we’ve done every year since we’ve been at Harvard.”

Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com and a frequent contributor to ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter @jack_mccluskey.