Ivy League Basketball News

The Ithaca Journal spoke to former Cornell coach Steve Donahue about the pro placements of recent grads Wittman, Foote, Dale, and Jaques. Says Donahue,

“In a lot of ways, all four made really good decisions,” Donahue said by phone Thursday. “In terms of where they’re at, the type of coaches they’re playing for, the cities they’re living in, the style of play. It fits every one of them. The guys did the right thing, took their time, had good representation, and in the long run it helps — those three in particular: Louis and Jeff and Ryan — to keep improving.

“Eventually, their hope is they can compete and improve their game to get to their goal of playing in the NBA or at the highest of levels and make this a really successful career.”

Princetonbasketball.com reports that Tiger alum Marcus Schroeder will be attending open D-League tryouts in Oakland on Saturday.

Harvard released its 2010-2011 roster yesterday.  It includes five incoming freshmen.  Current  sophomore Spencer de Mars is no longer listed on the roster.

Harvard also officially released the schedule that was inadvertently released by the Ivy League office last week.

Brown has also released its 2010-2011 roster, which includes four new freshmen and a transfer.  Current junior Marques Coleman is no longer listed on the roster.

The University of Kentucky released an official schedule that includes a matchup with Penn on January 3.

The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Buzz blog comments on the UK match-up.

Last year Penn men’s basketball suffered one of its the program’s worst defeat ever at Duke.

This year, the Quakers are headed to perennial powerhouse Kentucky. But it’s okay, right? All their players left for the NBA draft…

Toledo transfer Stephen Albrecht, now playing at Brown, has been added to the Twitter directory.

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Cornell players record video messages to Steve Donahue.

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Columbia Spectator — Year in review: Jones departs after season ends, Smith steps in

The men’s basketball team finished the Ivy League season with a disappointing 5-9 record, but the Lions will get a chance to improve on that record next year under new head coach Kyle Smith, who was hired after Joe Jones left for the associate head coaching position at Boston College.

“We have a great opportunity, we have a lot of talent coming back, a lot of good players—good young players—who are ready to work hard and make a push for an Ivy League title,” sophomore guard Steve Egee said of next season.

With six months until next season, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

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Harvard Crimson — Rouse rounds out men’s basketball recruiting class

The newest member of the Harvard men’s basketball team may very well be its brightest.

Ernest Rouse, a 6′2″ guard out of Archbishop Molloy High School (Queens, N.Y.), was accepted to Harvard without being recruited by the Crimson. He then initiated contact with coach Tommy Amaker and his staff and joined Harvard’s roster for next season.

“Ever since I got in, I’ve been talking to the coaches,” Rouse said. “I didn’t even think I was going to get in.”

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Boston Globe — At BC, his heart is in it

“As crushing as Khaliq’s injury was, it ended up changing everything,’’ said Donahue, rubbing tears from his eyes in his new suite at Conte Forum. “I said, ‘I can’t keep living like this.’ ’’

He chose to become the coach he had been before his will to win blurred his principles. As he commuted 70 miles round-trip daily to sit by Gant — the doctors initially said he may never walk again — Donahue reaffirmed that nurturing his players was more productive than punishing them.

“There’s no question I coach differently now,’’ he said. “I was way too hard on guys before then.’’

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From SlopeTV: “Cornell head coach Steve Donahue took the Boston College job on Tuesday, ending a 10 year tenure with the Big Red. Slope TV’s Sam Aleinikoff talks with Cornell Athletic Director Andy Noel and current players Adam Wire and Louis Dale to discuss the future of the program without Coach Donahue.”

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Fox Sports — Sources: Boston College picks Cornell’s Donahue

Boston College will hire Cornell’s Steve Donahue.

According to multiple sources, Donahue will be announced as the new men’s basketball coach today.

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Dan Duggan of Boston Herald tweets,

Donahue on BC campus meeting with school president, expected to be named new coach today.

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UPDATE: Dan Duggan of the Boston Herald tweets,

A BC source has confirmed: Steve Donahue will be named the new coach. An introductory press conference is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

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Starts at about the 3:30 mark.

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The New York Post claims that the St. John’s coaching position has been filled.

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Neil Hartmann from CSN Philly tweets:

Reported on CSN, Cornell’s Steve Donahue approached by Penn on Sat but no interest. No offer made yet, but Jerome Allen likely to get job.

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Brown’s Matt Mullery was named co-recipient of the Bill Reynolds Award for Men’s Player of the Year at the Cox Sports Rhode Island Basketball Media Luncheon on Monday.

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Harvard Crimson — Curry to undergo surgery

He led all Ivy freshmen in assists, steals, and three-point shooting percentage. But perhaps the most impressive thing about guard Brandyn Curry’s rookie season—a year in which he earned an honorable-mention All-Ivy selection from Basketball-U.com while twice being named Ivy League Rookie of the Week—was that he was playing hurt.

Curry said today that he plans to undergo surgery Wednesday to repair a torn left patellar tendon—an injury suffered at the end of his senior year at Hopewell High (N.C.).

Nonetheless, Curry gutted it out this past season, getting action in all 29 of the Crimson’s games.

“It couldn’t get better, and it couldn’t get any worse,” Curry said of the ailment.

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Daily Pennsylvanian — Recruits may decommit if Allen isn’t hired

Class of 2014 basketball recruit Dau Jok said yesterday that “there is a real possibility — I would say half of the recruits probably would not come” if Allen and assistants John Gallagher and Mike Martin do not remain at Penn.

… One potential recruit who still remains a 6-foot-8 question mark on the next Penn roster is Kevin Panzer.

A source within the Penn basketball program said that Panzer is ready to announce his commitment to Penn for the 2010 season pending the announcement that Jerome Allen is named head coach.

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Daily Pennsylvanian — Bilsky discusses effects of extensive coach search

DP: Do you think that there could be ill effects in terms of things like recruiting, depending on how long it takes to make the announcement for the new coach?

SB: I think when people make commitments to Penn in any sports, they’re making it to Penn as an institution, and to the basketball program, and to the coach. And so it appears at this point that the people are solid.

And as much as we have a concern about the existing recruiting class, you really have just as much concern about next year’s because recruiting is becoming an earlier and earlier cycle, so by saying we’re in the final stage, I think we’ll be able to take care of both this group [of recruits] and not lose anything going forward.

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Daily Princetonian — Men’s Basketball: Two-season turnaround best in program history

At this time two years ago, the men’s basketball team was wallowing in its 6-23 final record and its last-place finish in the Ivy League.

With the younger half of that team all grown up, Princeton (22-9 overall, 11-3 Ivy League) has reversed its record from two seasons ago to claim the most victories since 1999. This turnaround marks the biggest improvement in wins in such a short period of time in the history of Tiger basketball.

“My first couple of seasons that I had here, I don’t think we approached the team in the same way,” senior forward and co-captain Nick Lake said. “By the end of this season, we went into games — not cocky, but I would say confident. We knew that we were all playing together. There was a different attitude about us this year.”

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Ithaca Journal — ‘Home-run’ job offer isn’t out there for Donahue

Cornell coach thrilled to be where he is

Steve Donahue said Monday only a “flat-out home run” job offer would draw him away from Cornell, and despite his name being linked to multiple openings, no such job opening exists right now.

[Athletics Director Andy] Noel said Donahue has received yearly raises and “significant adjustments” to his contract. Cornell, as a private university, is not required to disclose salary amounts.

“We certainly have our limits,” Noel said. “We haven’t started to address the importance of retaining Steve Donahue in the last many months. We’ve been addressing it for the last many years.”

On Monday, Donahue was named the Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award winner. The award is given to the Division I men’s coach who makes an outstanding contribution to the sport of college basketball through inspiration, motivation, coaching and education while insisting on outstanding character and academic success.

Donahue has said repeatedly this season that people may not realize “how good I have it” at Cornell.

While reaching the Sweet 16 is not a realistic annual goal for an Ivy League program, perennial contention for the league championship is. Donahue believes that despite the expected graduation of eight seniors, including arguably the program’s three best players ever in Louis Dale, Jeff Foote and Ryan Wittman, Cornell will challenge for a fourth straight title next year.

“We’re not going to go away from the mold that made us successful,” he said. “I think we’ve done a great job of bringing in a freshmen class (this year) that is tremendous. I can’t say enough about their development even though people don’t see them on the court. I’m telling you, that is a terrific class. I’m really confident that once this (next) class is done that we’re bringing in, that we are right where we need to be to challenge for Ivy League championships.”

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Both Harvard’s Tommy Amaker and Cornell’s Steve Donahue have been named as top candidates for replacing Boston College’s Al Skinner, whose job status might be announced Tuesday.

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Brian Delaney of the Ithaca Journal spoke to Cornell athletic director Andy Noel about Cornell head coach Steve Donahue.

Noel backed up Donahue’s statement that he has turned down all inquiries thus far. Donahue said it would take a “home run” job offer to draw him away from Cornell.

Noel said the process to do everything possible to keep Donahue on board began several years ago, when it appeared clear to him that the culture surrounding the program was changing for the better.

“There’s absolutely no way to make sure Steve stays,” Noel said. “I can state that for the last many years, we have done all that we can each year to make the situation at Cornell a better and better situation. We certainly have our limits. We haven’t started to address the importance of retaining Steve Donahue in the last many months. We’ve been addressing it for the last many years.”

Delaney and Noel also discuss proceeds from Cornell’s participation in the NCAA tournament, which is more than the Ivy league has seen in a while:

To recap, Noel said the university presidents voted years ago to take the yearly NCAA participation sum (Noel called it “a unit”) and inject the whole amount into the base budget of the Ivy League office. The tournament representative (which has been Cornell for three years running) sees none of that money directly. Because the Ivy is granted an automatic tournament berth each year, the Ivy League office has always been able to count on that sum being available to them. That sum this year is $220,000 per game paid annually over a six-year span.

Since Cornell played three games, it garnered the Ivy League a $660,000 pay check each of the next six years. Noel said he hopes that when the question of what to do with the extra $440,000 is addressed by the league office, Cornell will garner some consideration for its role in the matter.

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Brian Delaney of the Ithaca Journal spoke to Cornell head coach Steve Donahue this morning about job rumors and other Big Red basketball matters.

On job rumors:

“I don’t know if there’s anything to address. As I say to you all the time, really it has to be a flat-out home run. No matter what you read, there’s nothing that I’ve even entertained that I would even consider leaving Cornell for. Nothing. There’s just not. I’ve said no to every single one of the (calls) that have inquired about me leaving here. It would have to be, to beat this situation, in terms of people I work for, the university I represent, the family loving the area as much as they do, all those things, it would have to be an incredible situation for me to leave Cornell.”

Players that might emerge next year?

“I think Aaron Osgood may be our most improved player over the last four months,” Donahue said. “He’s just done a real good job of relaxing and getting bigger and stronger and more confident. … I think Aaron’s ready to really help us.”

On a low-post offense for next year:

“I think you’ll see Mark Coury be a very tough guard in terms of scoring down the low post. I think he can score down there now. I think he developed his game and I think he showed he can be a terrific passer. I think you’ll see a lot more production out of him as a scorer. Just an all-around player. He’s going to play a lot more minutes and I think he’s going to be really good.”

On whether Cornell can compete for the Ivy title next year:

“Absolutely. I feel very confident with what these guys have done not only on the floor, but they understand how hard they have to work to maintain what they’ve done. I think the younger guys are chomping at the bit to prove to people they can keep this thing going. As are our coaches. We’re excited already for next year.”

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Video: WBNG Binghamton

New York Post — Pirates tap Iona’s Willard to clean up Gonzalez’s mess

Willard emerged as the Hall’s top choice after Fran McCaffery took the Iowa job and Cornell coach Steve Donahue didn’t blow away the brass during an interview with the Pirates yesterday morning.

NY Daily News — St. John’s Red Storm to meet with ex-UCLA coach Steve Lavin about vacancy

[St. John's AD] Monasch also may interview Cornell coach Steve Donahue this week. Sources told the Daily News that representatives for Donahue have reached out to express his interest in the St. John’s position since the Big Red got bounced in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night.

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