Rob Browne

Ivy men’s week nine roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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In the league’s penultimate weekend, each of the three first place teams won, while Brown pulled a game ahead of Cornell for fourth place.

Penn and Dartmouth had their offenses clicking at the Palestra on Saturday afternoon. 

The Quakers shot 73% from two and 42% from three, while the Big Green made 62% from inside the arc and 45% from outside.  With most shots going in from the field, the Red & Blue pulled away for their eighth straight win on the strength of their free throw shooting (17-for-18 vs 8-for-14) and rebounding (28-21). 

The victory allowed Penn to remain in first place, while the defeat ended Dartmouth’s chance for their first Ivy Tournament berth.

Trying to rebound from a huge second half collapse against Yale last weekend, Princeton used a 10-2 run over the last five minutes of the opening half to take a 37-23 halftime lead at Harvard.  The Tigers upped their advantage to 18 at the 15-minute mark of the second half, but the Crimson used a 20-4 run to make it a two-point game with five minutes left in regulation.

Contrary to last week, the Orange & Black would not give up the lead.

The teams combined to make one of the next ten shots from the field, as Princeton held a three-point advantage with twenty seconds remaining.  An Evan Nelson layup cut the deficit to one, but Ryan Langborg sank two free throws to make it 56-53.  Tigers coach Mitch Henderson followed Jon Rothstein’s advice and fouled Nelson, who missed the first of a one-and-one.  Caden Pierce came down with the rebound and hit both free throws to put the game away.

The win sets up a showdown with long-time rival Penn to claim at least a piece of the regular season championship.

Despite being without Matt Knowling for the second straight game, Yale posted a convincing win over Cornell in the team’s final game at the John J. Lee Amphitheater.  The Bulldogs, who were up 34-28 at the half, stretched their lead to 21 by the 11-minute mark and the Big Red didn’t get any closer than 11 points the rest of the way.  

The win was Yale’s eighth in the last nine games and allowed them to keep pace with the Ps.  It was also the 200th regular season Ivy victory for coach James Jones.  Jones, who is wrapping up his 24th year in New Haven, is 200-121 in league play and 110 conference wins away from former Princeton coach Pete Carril.

For Cornell, Saturday’s defeat was the fifth in their last six games and puts them on the wrong side of the Ivy Tournament bubble with one game to go.

Brown had a 14-point lead in the first half, but Columbia used four three-pointers in the latter part of the half to cut the Bears lead to five at the break.  The game was tied at 59 with 8:30 to go, but a 9-0 run over the next two minutes gave Bruno enough of a cushion to dash the Lions’ hopes of getting their third league win.

The win breaks Brown’s two game losing streak and allows Bruno to control its own destiny for the program’s first-ever spot in Ivy Madness. 

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Ivy women’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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Following Saturday afternoon’s action, the upper division pulled away from the bottom half, while the Brown rebuild took a positive step forward.

Columbia bounced back from a disappointing result against Princeton by taking it out on Yale in front of 1,485 fans at Levien Gymnasium.  The Lions jumped out to a 32-17 halftime lead on the strength of a 14-0 second quarter run.  The Light Blue made it a 20-point game after three and widen it to a game-high 28 points with just under four minutes to go in the contest.  Defensively, they limited the Bulldogs to 32% shooting and only 49 points, the first time they held an Ivy opponent under 50 this season.

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Ivy men’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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Week seven for the Ancient Eight saw Yale avenge its shocking opening day loss at Columbia and move into a tie at the top of the conference leaderboard.  After a close half that saw the Bulldogs holding onto a slim 31-26 lead, the Bulldogs outscored the last-place Lions 58-32 for the dominant 31-point win.  Yale, winners of six straight, had 13 different players in the scoring column and shot 65% from the field. 

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2024 Ivy League Tournaments moved from Brown to Columbia

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Levien Gym will host the 2024 Ivy League Tournaments, the league announced Wednesday. (Columbia Athletics)

In a surprise Wednesday afternoon announcement, the Ivy League office stated that the 2024 Ivy League men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be held at Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium. Specific dates for the four-day event have not been posted.

The announcement signals a substantial change in the Ivy League’s rotation of tournament locations set in 2019. Brown was slated to host the tournaments next in 2024.

The Ivy League attributed the move to Levien Gym to gym renovations being finished sooner than expected when the original tourney rotation was announced in a statement Wednesday.  

“The future of the rotation remains under continuous evaluation,” Ivy League spokesman Matt Panto told Ivy Hoops Online in an email Wednesday. “The league is excited to bring the tournaments to Princeton next month and New York City in 2024.”

Brown Athletics did not respond to a request for comment.

“New York City is home to passionate and dedicated alumni and fans from all eight Ivy League institutions,” Ivy League executive director Robin Harris said in Wednesday’s statement. “Coupled with the energy of March Madness and the enthusiasm that this event has built over just a short period of time, the league could not be more excited to host Ivy Madness in the Big Apple.”

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Ivy women’s week six roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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On Friday night, league-leading Columbia continued its “Revenge Tour” by dominating Penn by 22 points at Levien Gymnasium, avenging a surprise four-point loss to the Quakers on January 7.  The Crimson also had payback on their minds, as they traveled down to New Haven to take on a Yale team that defeated them 71-70 in overtime on that same January day.  Harvard’s defense took control over the opening 20 minutes, limiting the Elis to 19% (0% from three) from the field and opening up a 33-13 halftime lead that the visitors could not overcome.  

Meanwhile, Princeton, which entered the weekend tied for second with Penn and Harvard, rattled off a 17-5 run over a six-minute stretch of the third quarter to ring up a double-digit victory over Cornell.  In the night’s remaining contest, Brown swept the season series over Dartmouth on the strength of 10 three-pointers.

The Big Red suffered another big third-quarter run, giving up 17 straight points to the Quakers on Saturday, as Penn took the second half of their Empire State weekend. Harvard methodically built a 26-point fourth-quarter lead and ended up winning by 13 at Brown. The victory gave the Crimson a season sweep over the Bears and was the team’s fifth in a row.

Down three at the half, Yale outscored Dartmouth 28-17 in the third quarter to lead the Bulldogs to a 13-point win.  While Yale’s season sweep of the Big Green and weekend split keeps it in the hunt for a slot in the Ivy Tournament, Dartmouth’s 14th straight loss keeps them winless in Ivy action and eliminates it from postseason play.

Like last February, the Lions and Tigers faced off in front of a boisterous capacity crowd at Levien Gymnasium with first place on the line.  And just like a year ago, Princeton controlled the game from the very beginning, quickly taking the students out of the contest and running away with a commanding 18-point victory. 

The Tigers’ eighth win in a row was the first their first taste of Ivy revenge in the Carla Berube era, rebounding from an 58-55 defeat at home in early January.  

With nine league games in the book, Princeton, Columbia and Harvard sit atop the standings, while Penn is one game back in fourth and Yale is two games behind. 

While the preseason favorite Tigers and Lions split their season series, the commanding nature of Princeton’s road win, the reemergence of the team’s offense and the presence of the Ivy League Tournament at Jadwin Gymnasium seems to put the Orange & Black in the driver’s seat for the league’s automatic bid.

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Ivy men’s week six roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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The opening games of the second half of the Ivy slate ended with sweeps by Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown.  The Ps did their traditional double wins from home, while the New Englanders were able to earn their victories on the road.

On Friday, the Tigers welcomed Cornell to Jadwin Gymnasium in a match between the league’s top two teams.  Prior to the start of the contest, Princeton honored its championship teams from 1996 to 1998, which included Tigers head coach Mitch Henderson and Big Red coach Brian Earl.   The Orange & Black overcame a 13-point second half deficit to claim sole possession of first place.  The win gave Henderson his 200th career victory. 

A day later, the Tigers gave Henderson win number 201 with a comfortable 22-point victory over Columbia, the last-place team in the Ancient Eight.

Yale showed it has completely rebounded from its opening losses to Columbia and Dartmouth by extending its winning streak to five. 

The Bulldogs were hot on the offensive side in the first half at Harvard, opening up a 17-point halftime lead.  The Crimson tightened the defense in the second half and cut the lead to five with 2:25 to go in regulation, but a 0-for-6 effort the rest of the way ultimately doomed Harvard.  With the victory, the Bulldogs completed their second straight season sweep of their Boston rivals.

At Leede Arena, Yale used a 13-0 run to close out the first half and take an 11-point lead into the locker room.  The visitors never let the Big Green get closer than 10 and cruised to a 19-point revenge win that gave them sole possession of second place.

Against Columbia on Friday night, Penn took an 18-point advantage at the 13:15 mark of the second half, but the Lions clawed their way back and made it a five-point contest with two minutes on the clock.  Similar to Harvard against Yale, Columbia closed the game 1-for-6 and the Quakers came away winning by nine.

Saturday’s matchup between Penn and Cornell was an offensive slugfest with 10 lead changes over the first 30 minutes of action.  The Quakers eventually opened up a nine-point lead with 7:19 to go and held on against the never-say-die Big Red.  The win, which split the season series, gave Penn its fourth in a row and its 46th all-time sweep of the Empire Ivies.

The Big Red, meanwhile, dropped from the top of the leaderboard to a tie for third after the lost weekend.

In Friday’s game in Hanover, Brown tied a season high with 13-made three-pointers on their way to a season sweep of Dartmouth.  Although limited to 24% shooting in the opening half, the Big Green got within seven points with 9:25 left in the contest.  The Bears used a 10-2 run over the next four minutes to put the game away.

After four ties and five lead changes in a close contest between Brown and Harvard, Bruno used a 16-zero run to open up a 15-point lead almost halfway through the second half.   For the second straight night, the Crimson battled back, eventually making it a two-point game with six seconds remaining.  Brown made one of two free throws and the home team couldn’t convert the game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer.

Bruno’s win was the 133rd victory of head coach Mike Martin’s career, tying him for the program lead with Stanley Ward.  It also avenged a 70-68 overtime loss to Harvard at the Pizzitola Center on January 6 and put the team in a three-way tie for third place with Cornell and Penn.

By late Saturday night, Dartmouth dropped to sole possession of sixth place, while Harvard, losers of three straight was alone in seventh.

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Ivy women’s week five roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top 10

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As the opening half of the conference schedule came to a close on Saturday, Columbia used a dominant performance over last-place Dartmouth to claim sole possession of first place.  Penn, which entered the weekend tied with the Lions, fell from the top slot after giving up a season-high 84 points during a lopsided 24-point defeat at Harvard.  Princeton, which started out tied with Harvard and Yale, used a masterful defensive performance to beat Yale by 49 points and keep pace with the Crimson.  In Saturday’s Ivy opening game, Cornell used a 10-1 run early in the fourth quarter to pull away from Brown and get the league’s only road win. 

Saturday results
Cornell over Brown, 66-61
Princeton over Yale, 79-30
Columbia over Dartmouth, 79-50
Harvard over Penn, 84-60

Standings 
Columbia 6-1 (17-3 overall)
Princeton 5-2 (14-5)
Penn 5-2 (13-7)
Harvard 5-2 (12-7)
Yale 4-3 (10-10)
Cornell 2-5 (9-11)
Brown 1-6 (8-11)
Dartmouth 0-7 (2-19)

As the second half of the Ivy schedule begins this weekend, all eyes will focus on Levien Gymnasium as Columbia welcomes the Ps to NYC.  The league leaders will look for payback on Friday night against the Quakers, who pulled away late in the fourth quarter at home against the Lions on January 7.  On Saturday, Columbia, which beat Princeton by three in an overtime thriller on January 6, will try to make it two in a row against four-time defending champs.  The Tigers haven’t been swept by an Ivy opponent since losing to Penn three times in 2017, but the dreaded Friday night bus trip from Ithaca to Manhattan and a start time 20 hours after finishing the game at Cornell will certainly pose added challenges.

Fri., Feb. 3
Princeton at Cornell, 6:00 p.m.
Harvard at Yale, 6:00 p.m.
Penn at Columbia, 6:00 p.m.
Dartmouth at Brown, 7:00 p.m.

Sat., Feb. 4
Penn at Cornell, 4:00 p.m.
Princeton at Columbia, 4:00 p.m.
Dartmouth at Yale, 4:00 p.m.
Harvard at Brown, 5:00 p.m.

Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend:

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Ivy men’s week five roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top 10

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After another exciting weekend of Ivy hoops that saw all the home teams holding serve, the league standings have a tie at the top, and seven teams are separated by only two games. 

Yale continued its dominance of Princeton, winning for the eighth time in their last nine matchups.  Meanwhile, Penn, losers of three straight league contests, won its third straight over Harvard in a must-win game at the Palestra. 

Cornell, missing Nazir Williams, took care of Brown, which was without Kalu Anya, Dan Friday and Malachi Ndur.  Dartmouth continued its strong league play with a victory over Columbia, its third league win it its last four contests and finds itself over .500 at the halfway point for the first time since 2009.

Saturday results
Yale over Princeton, 87-65
Penn over Harvard, 83-68
Cornell over Brown, 80-73
Dartmouth over Columbia, 83-73

Standings 
Cornell 5-2 (15-5, overall)
Princeton 5-2 (14-6)
Yale 4-3 (14-6)
Dartmouth 4-3 (8-13)
Harvard 3-4 (12-9)
Brown 3-4 (10-10)
Penn 3-4 (11-11)
Columbia 1-6 (6-16)

The second half of the schedule starts with a big back-to-back weekend, highlighted by a matchup between the league leaders at Jadwin Gymnasium and Yale looking for revenge against Dartmouth at Leede Arena.

Fri., Feb. 3
Yale at Harvard, 5:00 p.m.
Brown at Dartmouth, 6:00 p.m.
Columbia at Penn, 7:00 p.m.
Cornell at Princeton, 7:00 p.m.

Sat., Feb. 4
Yale at Dartmouth, 6:00 p.m.
Brown at Harvard, 6:00 p.m.
Columbia at Princeton, 6:00 p.m.
Cornell at Penn, 6:00 p.m.

Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend: – 

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Dartmouth men withstand Harvard comeback and get weekend sweep

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Dartmouth senior forward Dame Adelekun posted 14 points and nine rebounds in the Big Green’s 60-59 win at Lavietes Pavilion Monday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Despite having its double-digit second half lead methodically erased by Harvard, Dartmouth prevented the Crimson from getting off a last-possession shot and came away with a 60-59 victory at Lavietes Pavilion on Monday afternoon.

In the opening weeks of Ivy play, the Big Green (7-12, 3-2 Ivy) are the conference’s most pleasant surprise.  Picked seventh in the preseason media poll, Dartmouth now has wins against the No. 1 (Penn), No. 2 (Yale) and No. 4 (Harvard) ranked teams.

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Harvard men stymie Columbia, powered by Ledlum double-double

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While the Ivy League is known for its close games, Saturday afternoon’s matchup at Lavietes Pavilion was an exception as Harvard cruised to a 73-51 victory over Columbia.

The win moves the Crimson (11-7, 2-2 Ivy) into a four-way tie for second place, while the defeat sends the Lions (6-13, 1-3) into a two-way tie with Yale for the bottom slot in the conference.

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