Ivy League Basketball News

All-Ivy Men’s Basketball 2009-10

First Team
Louis Dale, Cornell (Sr., G, Birmingham, Ala.)
*Jeff Foote, Cornell (Sr., C, Lockwood, N.Y.)
*Ryan Wittman, Cornell (Sr., G/F, Eden Prairie, Minn.)
*Jeremy Lin, Harvard (Sr., G, Palo Alto, Calif.)
*Zack Rosen, Penn (So., G, Colonia, N.J.)

Second Team
Matt Mullery, Brown (Sr., F, Millstone, N.J.)
Noruwa Agho, Columbia (So., G, New City, N.Y.)
Jack Eggleston, Penn (Jr., F, Noblesville, Ind.)
Douglas Davis, Princeton (So., G, Philadelphia, Pa.)
Dan Mavraides, Princeton (Jr., G, San Mateo, Calif.)
Alex Zampier, Yale (Sr., G, East Greenbush, N.Y.)

Honorable Mention
Chris Wroblewski, Cornell (So., G, Highland Park, Ill.)
Kyle Casey, Harvard (Fr., F, Medway, Mass.)
Michael Sands, Yale (Jr., F, Franklin Square, N.Y.)

Player of the Year
*Ryan Wittman, Cornell

Rookie of the Year
Kyle Casey, Harvard

Defensive Player of the Year
Jeff Foote, Cornell

See the full release at the Ivy League Office.

Read about Penn’s loss to Princeton in the Philadelphia Daily News.  Dick Jerardi reviews Penn’s “disappointing” season and  speculates on future coaching options for Penn, including Cornell’s Steve Donahue.    On Penn’s season:

The coach who began the season on the sideline did not last until Christmas. A first-year volunteer coach, who had just finished a professional career after being one of his university’s greatest players, became the interim coach.

It was nearly 2 months without winning a game. It was the upset of the college basketball season. It was injuries to key players and a new way of playing for those who remained.

That was Penn basketball 2009-2010. And when it mercifully ended last night at Jadwin Gym, it was a 68-56 loss to Princeton. It was a final record of 6-22, 5-9 in the Ivy League.

On coaching options:

[Lafayette's] O’Hanlon may very well have interest. Donahue will get serious looks from major programs. And McCaffery has a great job at Siena, where he has a salary Penn likely can’t match. Still, Penn does have a certain cachet. It was a great job for a long time. It can be great again.

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The Daily Princetonian ,the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Trentonian also review Princeton’s win over Penn last night.  The Trentonian discusses Princeton’s NIT hopes:

With the regular season over, all the Tigers can do is wait for a postseason tournament invitation.

“This is a pretty good team for any postseason tournament,” Johnson said. “We feel like we’re deserving. We hope we’re happy on Sunday.”

With an NCAA tournament bid out of the question, however, Schroeder made it clear where his teammates want to be.

“We want to get in the NIT, but we just want to play,” Schroeder said.

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Slam Online speculates on the pro chances of Harvard’s Jeremy Lin.

As a synopsis, it is complicated evaluating a player when he is not surrounded by the appropriate talent necessary to really give credence to such an evaluation. This is one of the reasons drafting high school players yielded such unpredictable results. It’s tough to determine prospective success at the NBA level when basing such a judgment on how a player is performing at a much lower level of competition. In the case of Jeremy Lin, playing in a game that doesn’t mean anything for a post-season future at the standard of the Ivy League, it is not overly surprising he did not shine as bright as he might have otherwise. Whatever the explanation though, I still have a hard time seeing him in the NBA. He’d be at most average sized for a PG at the next level, but does not quite have the cat-quickness of those similarly smallish players. Further, playing off the ball as he did for the large part of the game, I was not able to establish if his handle was quite up to the standard of the El. He did flash a quick, low crossover on one occasion, but that was just about it. Without that handle, or truly dead-eye shooting from the outside (and he may very well have a tough time with the NBA 3-point line because of his mechanical hiccups), I have a hard time seeing Lin making it through a training camp next autumn.

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The Bleacher Report interviews ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who mentioned that Cornell could be a Cinderella this year:

I really like Cornell. Cornell has Ryan Wittman and Foote down low. They almost walked into Lawrence, Kansas and beat KU, put them in a really close game. And they beat St. John’s.

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The Mid-Majority looks at teams that surpassed expectations this year, including Princeton:

It’s just the way the Ivy League works; runner-ups are quickly forgotten in the rush to March. So the Tigers, substantially improved on the defensive end in Sydney Johnson’s third year, will have to wait until next season to return to glory. Under Johnson’s steady control, this group put up a seven-win improvement against the program’s 2008-09 performance, allowed just 49 points per game in conference and posted a sterling 10-5 mark on the road for the year. But the real reason for Princeton’s early front-runner status in the 2011 Ivy? While three-time champion Cornell was enjoying a busy senior day, the Tigers will return their five top scorers in the fall.

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The Brown Daily Herald reviews Cornell’s clinching of the Ivy title.

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Collegeinsider.com named individuals for a variety of honors yesterday, including Cornell’s Steve Donahue as the most fashionable coach in the Ivy League and  Princeton’s Sydney Johnson as coach of the year. On Donahue:

IVY LEAGUE: My “Mr. Snazzy Dresser” of the upper echelon of fashion conferences is Steve Donahue of Cornell.

On conference awards:

IVY LEAGUE
Player of the Year: Ryan Wittman (Cornell)
Coach of the Year: Sydney Johnson (Princeton)
Co-Most Valuable Player: Louis Dale (Cornell) & Jeremy Lin (Harvard)

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Cornell’s Ryan Wittman has been named to  to the United States Basketball Writers Association’s District II team.  The USBWA’s District II includes all Division I schools in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Washington D.C. and West Virginia.  The rest of the team is composed of Lavoy Allen (Temple),  De’Sean Butler (West Virginia), Austin Freeman (Georgetown), Ashton Gibbs (Pittsburgh), Jeremy Hazell  (Seton Hall), Wes Johnson (Syracuse), Greg Monroe (Georgetown), Andy Rautins (Syracuse) and Scottie Reynolds, (Villanova).

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Cornell will host a selection show gathering on Sunday in Newman Arena.

The Cornell men’s basketball team will watch Sunday’s NCAA tournament selection show in style, surrounded by the cheerleaders, the Cornell Pep Band and students from Newman Nation, as well as season ticket holders and family, in Newman Arena.

Head coach Steve Donahue and the 2009-10 Ivy champion Cornell basketball will gather to learn its tournament fate for the first round games with a big screen broadcast of the CBS Selection Show coverage, and the team will have the opportunity to do a ceremonial cutting down of the nets for its third straight Ivy title.

The event is free for students and season ticket holders, but hard tickets are required for all attendees. Doors will open at 5 p.m. and close at 5:30 p.m. for the 6 p.m. show. There will be no late admittance. A limited number of seats are available, so come by the Athletic Ticket Office in Bartels Hall beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 9th.

From the Associated Press recap:

Douglas Davis scored 21 points to lead Princeton to a 68-56 victory over Pennsylvania on Tuesday night in the season finale for both teams.

Princeton shot 56.5 percent from the field (13 of 23) in the first half, going 5-for-10 from the 3-point line. Penn shot 23.8 (5 of 21) in the first half.

In the second half, Penn (6-22, 5-9) shot 53.8 percent from the field (14 of 26) to Princeton’s 25 percent (5 of 20).

Zack Rosen scored 18 points, Jack Eggleston added 16 and Dan Monckton had 14 points for Penn.

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See the box score.  Read recaps at PennAthletics.com and GoPrincetonTigers.com.

Princeton and Penn face off tonight at 7 pm in Jadwin Gym.  Read  previews of the game at DailyPrincetonian.com, GoPrincetonTigers.com, and PennAthletics.com.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that interim Penn head coach Jerome Allen is bolstering his chances, but his permanent hiring has yet to be decided upon.

All signs lead to Jerome Allen’s being selected as Penn’s next men’s basketball coach.

Allen, the Quakers’ interim head coach since the firing of Glen Miller in December, has been receiving high praise from alumni, players, and athletic director Steve Bilsky.

Moreover, ZagsBlog.com reported yesterday that, according to sources close to the program, Allen would officially be named the full-time coach before the Final Four.

However, on Saturday, Bilsky would say only that the former Penn basketball standout was a strong candidate and that the coaching search would intensify in coming weeks. He reiterated that yesterday in an e-mail.

“We’re not going to comment on the veracity of any particular blog or rumor,” he wrote, “but the search is ongoing and will intensify during this month.”

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The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Buzz Blog also believed rumors of Allen’s hiring might have been premature, but are probably a good sign for Allen.

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Brian Delaney of the Ithaca Journal compares Louis Dale the Sophomore vs. Louis Dale the Senior.

Here’s an item for tomorrow’s notebook that you may find interesting. It compares Lou Dale’s numbers during league play in 2007-08, and again this year. Remember, these are just league play numbers, not full season.

Should be interesting to see where Louis Dale falls in the all-Ivy selections, which will be released Wednesday.

As a sophomore, when he was named player of the year, Dale’s Ivy League numbers were: 14.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 5.0 apg, 1.1 spg, 46-percent shooting (66 for 143), 29 percent shooting from the arc (14 for 49) and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.8 to 1.

As a senior, his league numbers were 13.3 ppg, 4.6 apg, 3.0 rpg, 1.2 spg, 51 percent shooting (68 for 134), 45 percent shooting from the arc (25 for 56) and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.7 to 1.

Coaches take the entire season into consideration when voting for all-Ivy, but generally place a larger emphasis on the 14-game schedule.

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Delaney also thinks Cornell’s shooting slump is over.

In its last six Ivy League games, Cornell made 71 of 132 shots from the three-point arc, or 53.8 percent.

The highlight was Cornell’s 20-for-30 outing Friday night at Brown, which helped wrap up a third straight league title.

“We obviously have a lot of shooters, a lot of people capable of shooting the 3,” said Ryan Wittman, who had the worst 3-point shooting night of his teammates at Brown, connecting “only” four of eight. “Tonight was the kind of night where everyone was on at the same time.”

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The Bleacher Report wonders how far Cornell can go in the tournament.

The Big Red are paced by three-point marksman Ryan Wittman, the son of former Indiana Pacer Randy Wittman, who has made All-Ivy League first team two straight years and is a lock to do it again this season. Wittman averages 17 points a game and has drained 42 percent of his three-pointers, drilling 100 on the season. Seven-footer Jeff Foote is also a lane-clogger who can score around the basket, earning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year honors a year ago.

This isn’t your typical egghead Ivy League team, instead winning at Alabama, UMass, St. John’s and LaSalle and dropping a five-point game at Kansas and falling to Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. That schedule was put together with the NCAA Tournament in mind and Cornell responded with 27 wins, tying for second-best in Ivy League history. The goal for the Big Red isn’t just to get in, but to become the first Ivy League team since Princeton in 1998 to win a tourney game.

The biggest mistake a power conference team can make will be to take the Big Red lightly and trot out a zone defense—Cornell is deadly from three-point range with five players hitting at least 39 triples on the season.

HOW FAR CAN THEY GO? Two rounds, but more likely a celebration of the Ivy League’s first NCAA Tournament win in 12 years.

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Cornell head coach Steve Donahue has been named a finalist for the 2010 Hugh Durham Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award, and the 2010 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award.

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Cornell received 10 votes in this week’s ESPN/USA Today poll.  This is down from 15 last week, but places the Big Red at 28th nationwide, up from 29th.

Both the AP and ESPN/USA Today poll can be seen here.

Cornell received 3 votes in this week’s AP poll, down from 5 last week.  The poll can be seen here.  This ties Cornell with Louisville at 33rd, up from 37th last week.

Cornell’s Louis Dale is this week’s Ivy League Player of the Week:

Cornell senior guard Louis Dale (Birmingham, Ala.) was fantastic for the Big Red in two road wins, helping Cornell to its third straight outright Ivy League title. He averaged 18.0 points, 6.5 assists, 1.5 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game while making 64 percent of his field goals, six-of-eight from three-point range (63 percent) and all three of his free throws. He had an amazing 13 assist, zero turnover ratio in 61 minutes and directed an offense that shot 55 percent from the floor in two wins while hitting 32 3-pointers.

Harvard’s Brandyn Curry picks up his second Rookie of the Week in a row:

Harvard freshman guard Brandyn Curry (Huntersville, N.C.) averaged 10.5 points, 5.0 assists and 4.5 rebounds in two games for the Crimson. At Penn on Saturday, he recorded a career-high nine assists with 10 points and no turnovers in a tight one-point victory. He shot 45 percent from three-point range and had a team-high 11 points Saturday at Princeton.

The honor roll included Brown’s Garret Leffelman, Columbia’s Niko Scott, Cornell’s Ryan Wittman, Dartmouth’s RJ Griffin, Harvard’s Jeremy Lin, Penn’s Jack Eggleston, Princeton’s Kareem Maddox, and Yale’s Alex Zampier.

Read the full release from the Ivy Office.

Cornell remains at #29 spot in CHN’s national top 50*. It remains at #10 in CHN’s Non-BCS Top 25.

*Earlier today, this site reported that from #29 to #30, despite its weekend sweep. This was the case at the time this post was created; the CHN site indicates that the rankings, which were first published last night, were updated later in the morning.

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Read about Columbia’s loss to Yale and win over Brown in the Columbia Spectator.  After the win at Brown:

“Overall, the season on the whole, obviously it wasn’t what we expected from ourselves,” [Columbia head coach Joe]Jones said. “We expected a lot coming to the year and I felt like for whatever reason we just struggled to come together. But tonight was great for us because I thought it showed for the future that we have some good pieces here.”

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Prior to the Columbia-Brown game, the Columbia Spectator profiled Brown’s Matt Mullery.

Brown’s senior Matt Mullery is the basketball equivalent of the Renaissance man. The 6-foot-8 forward leads his team in nearly every statistical category, from points to blocked shots. It’s safe to say that Mullery is the backbone of the Bears.

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The Brown Daily Herald reviews Brown’s senior weekend losses to Cornell and Columbia.

Regardless, the Pizzitola crowd gave Mullery a standing ovation as he left the court for the final time with 6.2 seconds to go, a fitting end for his memorable career spent manning the paint for Brown.

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Read about Cornell’s weekend victories over Brown and Yale in the Cornell Daily Sun.

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Read about Dartmouth’s weekend losses to Princeton and Penn in The Dartmouth.  Dartmouth ends the season with a 1-13 W-L record.

“It has been a tough season and we did not win many games, but this team fought its heart out right to the very end,” interim head coach Mark Graupe said.

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Read about Harvard’s loss to Princeton in the Harvard Crimson. A second Crimson article also reviews the game. Jeremy Lin scored 8 points on 1 of 8 shooting while Kyle Casey scored 5 points on 2 of 6 shooting and fouled out with 3:37 to play.

The Harvard men’s basketball team has proven its ability to win when co-captain Jeremy Lin isn’t on his game. But when its second option is also struggling, the Crimson’s chances for victory drop dramatically, especially on the road.

Such was the case Saturday night at Princeton’s Jadwin Gymnasium, where the top two stars for both teams had off nights.

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The Harvard Crimson also published a second article about Harvard’s win at Penn.

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Read about Princeton’s weekend wins over Dartmouth and Harvard in the Daily Princetonian.

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The Bleacher Report discusses potential basketball coaching changes, including options for Dartmouth and Penn:

Dartmouth

Not much public interest thus far. 50 years without a title will do that. Expect Dartmouth to look at a candidate pool that will include regional and other Ivy League assistants (Nat Graham – Cornell assist) or lower division coaches with success in the area (Mike Maker – Williams College coach, Bob Walsh – Rhode Island College coach, Larry Anderson – MIT coach).

Penn

Jerome Allen – Interim coach, Andy Toole (Robert Morris assistant), Fran O’Hanlon (Lafayette head coach), Steve Donahue (Cornell head coach, former Penn assistant).

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NESN.com wonders if the Ivy League is right to send its regular season champ Cornell dancing.

Cornell is an exception. The regular-season champion is not always head-and-shoulders better than the rest of the league. In most cases, the regular-season champion is a few wins better than the second- and third-place teams. That may mean they are more deserving of a trip to the Big Dance, but it doesn’t mean they have the best chance of winning a game. For the mid-major conferences, that’s what it is all about.

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The Saratogian reviews Kathy Orton’s book, “Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League”.

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Dick Jerardi of the Philadelphia Daily News writes about about Penn’s win over Dartmouth:

Penn wins home finale

It definitely will not show in the final record, but Penn is far better in March than it was in December and January. Offensively, this is now a team that gets good shots and makes them.

The Quakers (6-21, 5-8 Ivy League) beat Dartmouth, 78-68, at the Palestra. Penn will finish its season tomorrow at Princeton. Penn shot 52.1 percent against Dartmouth after shooting 61 percent in Friday’s loss to Harvard.

Jack Eggleston had 25 points and 11 rebounds against Dartmouth. Zack Rosen had 18 points and six assists.

He also has Cornell back in his Top 15 after a week away:

15. Cornell (27-4): Crushed Yale, 79-59. Shot an amazing 32-for-51 from the arc in two weekend wins. Everything has been geared to getting an NCAA win this time. The draw will be critical.

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Cornell’s Jon Jaques has a new post on NYT’s Quad Blog about the Big Red’s week off while waiting for Selection Sunday. An excerpt:

Sitting comfortably in my room while watching Northern Iowa struggle to secure an N.C.A.A. tournament berth against Wichita State in the final of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament made me glad to be an Ivy Leaguer. Though the lack of a conference tournament may lead to some ulcers and sleepless nights among Ivy League coaches and fans (definitely not players), once your ticket to the Big Dance has officially been punched it sure is nice to sit back and watch the rest of Championship Week unfold.