ESPN.com’s Back of the Envelope Guide to the Las Vegas Summer League includes some Ivy notes:
Ibrahim Jaaber: How do you not pull for a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year who tweets Ralph Ellison: “I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante into its depths.” The former roommate and teammate of Brandon Jennings is as passionate about his music as he is basketball.
Jeremy Lin: The standout point guard from Harvard drew a lot of fans when he dropped 30 points on UConn last December. The highest-ranked comment on the YouTube highlight reel of that performance is, “Yo this kid is sick. Rep’n for da Asians, homie.”
Ryan Wittman: The four-year Cornell standout went undrafted, but he might have the most limitless range of anyone in the gym. He also has some diehard fans who started a blog named Ryan Wittman Facts: “A three-year-old Ryan Wittman was the favorite in the 1991 Belmont Stakes before his parents pulled him out at the last minute.”
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The Ithaca Journal provides a summary of Ryan Wittman’s final Celtics summer game in Orlando. Wittman will now play for the Knicks summer squad in Vegas.
In his final game with the Boston Celtics at the Orlando Summer League, 2010 Cornell graduate Ryan Wittman scored eight points on 4-for-7 shooting in 21 minutes, 2 seconds of action in an 86-68 loss to New Jersey.
Wittman added three rebounds and two steals in Friday’s loss. The 6-foot-7 small forward is scheduled to play for the New York Knicks’ summer league team in Las Vegas. The Knicks’ first game is scheduled for Sunday.
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ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil has a story on former Penn assistant coach John Gallagher’s roundabout route to the head coaching job at Hartford in a story that involved Penn coach Jerome Allen and former Cornell coach Steve Donahue:
As things often happen in situations like this, the job Gallagher spent a lifetime waiting for came to fruition in a whirlwind flash.
When he was an assistant at Penn, Gallagher headed to this year’s Final Four, unsure if he and his interim head coach, Jerome Allen, would have a job next year. Penn finally tabbed Allen for the permanent gig two days after the national championship game and Allen kept Gallagher on as his assistant.
Eight days later, Donahue — a Philly native who worked at Penn and graduated from the same high school as Gallagher — called to ask Gallagher to join him at BC as an assistant.
Gallagher said yes, which opened a spot up on the Penn staff.
Eight days later, Allen hired then-Hartford head coach and former Temple assistant Dan Leibovitz to replace Gallagher.
Before coming to Penn, Gallagher had spent two years as Liebovitz’s assistant at Hartford.
So when Leibovitz left town, Hartford athletic director Pat Meiser made one call — to Gallagher. He interviewed with Meiser for two hours, met with university president Walter Harrison for 30 minutes and finally, after 21 years of dreaming, was offered his first head-coaching position.
For those without the benefit of a scorecard, that’s going from potentially unemployed to a Penn assistant to a Boston College assistant to Hartford’s head coach, all in the span of 11 days.
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The Tuscon Citizen comments on Jeremy Lin’s game yesterday:
In the initial NBA Summer League game between Denver and Dallas, Mayo and Draper were on the court along with Harvard rookie point guard Jeremy Lin with the Mavericks. Draper (who had three steals in the first half) and Lin (four points on 2-of-4 shooting) are credible, but Mayo looks out of his element.
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Intro by Bill Bradley.