Ivy hoops roundup – June 13, 2019

  • Per Princeton Athletics, new women’s coach Carla Berube will be formally introduced at a press conference Wednesday at noon. Princeton Athletics told IHO that there will be no live or on-demand broadcast of the press conference on ESPN+ or goprincetontigers.com.  It is possible that highlights will be made available on the the team’s social media page.
  • Lindsay Gottlieb, a 1995-1999 member of the Brown women’s team, was announced as the newest assistant coach on John Beilein’s Cleveland Cavaliers staff.  She was previously the head coach of the California Golden Bears from 2011-2019, going 179-89 overall (86-58 Pac-12), making seven NCAA Tournament appearances, and earning a spot in the 2013 Final Four.

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Ivy hoops roundup – June 6, 2019

  • Following a 11-plus week paid suspension, Auburn University reinstated former Penn assistant coach Ira Bowman to his similar position on Saturday afternoon.  The 1996 Ivy League Player of the Year was suspended by Auburn just before the SEC Tournament, after former Penn coach Jerome Allen testified that Bowman was involved in a scheme resulting in bribes by Florida businessman Philip Esformes to get his son, Morris Esformes, on the basketball roster for the fall of 2015.
    Sam Blum of AL.com wrote that an Auburn athletics spokesman confirmed the news but did not have the results of the school’s investigation or information regarding the reasoning for Bowman’s reinstatement.  AL.com has filed an open records request to obtain this information.  Bowman returned to his reported $250,000 a year job, just in time to help with one of the biggest recruiting weekends in program history.
    Kevin Bonner, Penn’s senior associate athletic director, governance and administration, did not respond to an email from IHO regarding the reinstatement, the Auburn investigation or any Penn investigation of Bowman.

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Sam Jones on fire for Penn basketball

PHILADELPHIA – Early in the second half, Penn basketball had yet to hit its stride against Central Connecticut State, tied at 36. Where was the three-point barrage that had just two days earlier taken Robert Morris by storm? Was this sluggish offense reality setting in?

But then Sam Jones hit a three. And then another. AND THEN ANOTHER.

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Brown all-time moment No. 4: Bears upset Penn in 1982

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Brown is next because a championship program has to start somewhere…   

A win isn’t always just a win.

Brown supporters found that out on Jan. 8, 1982, when the Bears upset Penn at Marvel Gym, 76-75.

The two programs couldn’t have been farther apart that day. The Quakers had won four straight Ivy titles under coach Bob Weinhauer and would go onto win a fifth at season’s end. The Bears, meanwhile, were winless at 0-11 and in the middle of a seventh straight losing season, their third season with at least 20 losses in that span.

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Former Penn coach Tom Schneider, 1946-2015

Tom Schneider died March 17. He was 68. (legacy.com)
Tom Schneider died March 17. He was 68. (legacy.com)

Penn Athletics reported Monday that Tom Schneider, head coach of the Penn Quakers from 1985 to 1989, died March 17. He was 68.

Schneider led the Quakers to the 1987 Ivy League championship and went 51-54 in four seasons before leaving to take the head coaching post at Loyola (Md.).

According to Penn Athletics, Schneider was working as a history professor at Polk State Lakeland Collegiate High School in Lakeland, Fla., where he had served as a professor since 2005.

Schneider was an assistant for Penn from 1979 to 1983 under head coaches Bob Weinhauer and Craig Littlepage, who Schneider would succeed in that post after serving in the same role at Lehigh for two seasons.

Polk State College ran Schneider’s obituary on March 19.

“Players know when a coach is right and they listen,” said Polk State basketball coach Matt Furjanic, a longtime friend of Schneider’s since the 1970s according to the Polk Newsroom. “It’s the same way in a classroom — students enjoy learning from teachers who know a lot about the subject and know how to teach it. Tom did.”

Former Penn coach Jerome Allen joins Boston Celtics

(Laurence Kesterson/AP)
Jerome Allen is leaving the Palestra for the Boston Garden (okay, the TD Garden). (AP)

As an outstanding people person who the Philadelphia Inquirer correctly noted that no one wanted to see fired as Penn head coach in March, Jerome Allen was likely to find a decent assistant coaching gig outside the confines of the Palestra.

But was anybody expecting this?

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Penn all-time moment No. 1: The 1979 Final Four run

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We covered Penn now because Steve Donahue knows what’s up:

YQ = Young Quaker, of course. Bob Weinhauer = forever.
YQ = Young Quaker, of course. Bob Weinhauer = forever.

For those who did not experience it, the 1979 Penn Final Four season is almost indescribable. It was a once in a lifetime moment that happened to last two weeks. As students, our time in Philly was indelibly shaped by the completely unexpected rise of the Red and Blue to national prominence. School spirit was at an all-time high, and people who otherwise knew and cared little about college basketball were swept up in the mania that those few weeks in March brought. USA Today ranks it as the greatest Final Four ever and it is still, 36 years later, one of the highest-rated in terms of television viewership. This is because it not only changed our lives, but it changed the panorama of college basketball in America forever.

The ‘78-79 campaign started out like most for the Quakers in Bob Weinhauer’s second year as head coach. The team had finished 20-8 in his rookie season and was well on its way to repeating as Ivy League champions. The Quakers deftly handled their nonconference schedule, losing only to Iowa in two overtimes and getting blown out by San Diego State, 110-86. Then in late January came the Georgetown game at the Palestra. It was a nationally televised contest, a rarity for an Ivy League school, on a freezing Saturday afternoon. (Let’s face it, the networks certainly weren’t going to give it Brown or Cornell). The Cathedral was packed. Georgetown was ranked 10th in the nation and featured All-American guard Eric “Sleepy” Floyd and forward Craig “Big Sky” Shelton. (They just don’t make nicknames like that anymore.  Tony “Big Float” Hicks? Nah.)

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Penn all-time moment No. 5: Hiring Fran Dunphy

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Penn is next because (shameless Penn plug alert) Wet Hot American Summer: First Day at Camp, starring Penn alumna Elizabeth Banks, is out on Netflix on July 31. 

Three years after the giddy Final Four run of 1979, Bob Weinhauer made the jump to the Pac-8, thus creating a decade long victory vacuum for the Quakers. Craig Littlepage, who basically made a career out of saying he recruited Ralph Sampson to Virginia, was 40-39, while his successor Tom Schneider went a mere 51-54.

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