CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— Harvard guard Oliver McNally had just finished lifting weights when the text messages started pouring in.

“My phone blew up right before practice,” he said Monday after the Crimson cracked The Associated Press’ Top 25 for the first time in school history. “I figured we had made it.”

Harvard (8-0) entered the rankings at No. 25 — the first Ivy League school to be ranked since Princeton made the top 10 late in the 1997-98 season, and just the third from the conference in the rankings since 1970. It’s another milestone for a program that shared the Ivy League title last year — its first-ever conference championship.

“People have made history in every aspect at Harvard — except the basketball team,” McNally said. “That’s what we wanted to do here.”

Unbeaten with a win over then-ranked Florida State in the semifinals of the “Battle 4 Atlantis” Thanksgiving tournament in the Bahamas, Harvard is one of four teams to join the rankings this week. But the others — Georgetown, Creighton and Illinois — have all been regulars.