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.
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.
Intro by Bill Bradley.