Ashley Ducharme

Brown senior forward Ashley Ducharme makes cards in between baskets

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In between hitting the hardwood, Brown senior forward Ashley Ducharme runs a handmade card company. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

If you are a college basketball fan, it’s likely you’ve heard of Connecticut Huskies freshman phenom guard Caroline Ducharme.

Ducharme inked a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) deal with ISlide, a sandal company, for a sandal featuring the quote, “When it gets hard, think about why you started.”

“My ‘why’ is my family, specifically my older sister Ashley,” Ducharme wrote on Instagram. “It’s hard to describe the impact that she’s had on me as a player and who I am as a person. There’s no one who inspires, challenges, and supports me more than she does. Will always be my favorite teammate.”

Her sister is Brown Bears senior forward Ashley Ducharme. Ashley may be the lesser-known Ducharme sister, but she is impressive in her own right.

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Ivy League women’s basketball Media Day roundup

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One day after releasing the conference’s preseason poll, the Ivy League moved one step closer to normal by hosting the 2021-22 Media Day for women’s basketball Tuesday.  For the first time, the league used a Zoom format to create a stronger connection between the coaches, players and the media.

In Monday’s poll, three-time defending champion Princeton was again picked as the top team with 122 total points and 12 first-place votes.  Penn, the 2019 co-champion, was selected No. 2 with three first-place votes and 108 points. The next three teams were close, with only six points separating Columbia, Yale and Harvard.

The Lions, which earned their first Ivy League Tournament berth in 2020 before the tourney was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, moved up to third with 87 points. The Bulldogs, a third-place team in 2020, dropped to fourth at 82 points.  The Crimson, which finished fifth in 2020, received one first-place vote but missed the upper division by one point.

Cornell, the 2020 seventh-place squad, moved up to sixth for 2022 with 41 points.  Dartmouth and Brown, two teams with new coaching staffs, ended up with the last two spots, with the Big Green’s 29 points two ahead of the Bears.

Tuesday’s Media Day revealed the four tiers apparent in the preseason poll. But there could be a slight reordering near the top.

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What each Ivy women’s team’s fans should be thankful for this Thanksgiving season

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means it’s time to take stock of what followers of each Ivy women’s team should be thankful for at this point of the season:

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Brown women’s basketball to greatly expand its roster for 2018-2019

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With a fourth place finish, an appearance in the inaugural Ivy Tournament, and a postseason win in the first round of the 2017 Women’s Basketball Invitational, things looked bright for the Brown women’s team heading into 2017-2018. The Bears, which did not lose a single member of the previous year’s squad, were picked fourth in the league’s preseason poll and there was talk among Ivy fans that this group could be the first since 2011-2012 to break the Harvard-Penn-Princeton stranglehold on the conference’s top three spots.

A 9-1 start, including Tournament titles at the University of Pacific and the Ocean State Tip-Off, added to the program’s confidence as it returned from finals to visit Boston University on December 22nd. Up 28 points with 3:22 remaining in the third quarter, starting three-guard Taylor Will came off the court with a knee injury and did not return to action for the rest of the year. While Brown defeated the Terriers, Howard University and Johnson & Wales to complete its non-conference scheduled with a program-best 12-1 record, the Bears aura of invincibility had been shattered.

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