As this Ivy non-season progresses, we thought it’d make sense for us to do an Ivy Hoops Online contributors’ roundtable looking ahead to next season, assuming there is one:
Camilla Emsbo
If there would have been a 2020-21 Ivy hoops season, what would have happened?
Now’s the time of year that an Ivy League hoops slate would be revving up, and since there’s no Ivy hoops action to come this spring, here’s an IHO contributors’ roundtable pondering what might have happened in the 2020-21 Ivy season on the men’s and or women’s sides if there had been one instead of an exodus of much of the league’s top talent via the transfer portal. Behold the one-year Ivy hoops universes we created:
Report: Harvard men’s basketball poised not to play in ’20-’21, at least one other team considering the same
A quiet Saturday on the college basketball front was upended just after three o’clock with Adam Zagoria’s tweet:
Sources: Two Ivy League schools are highly unlikely to play men’s hoops this year and it’s possible the whole league won’t play at all.
“I have a feeling it would be the whole league isn’t going to play,” one Ivy League asst coach.
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) October 17, 2020
NCAA allows return of basketball in November, Ivy League will wait to decide
With most regular seasons and championships for fall sports postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, college athletes and fans have been anxiously awaiting word on the winter sports schedule. They received good news on September 16, when the NCAA Division I Council, chaired by Penn athletic director Grace Calhoun, announced that the men’s and women’s basketball seasons could begin on November 25.
“The new season start date near the Thanksgiving holiday provides the optimal opportunity to successfully launch the basketball season,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said to ESPN. “It is a grand compromise of sorts and a unified approach that focuses on the health and safety of student-athletes competing towards the 2021 Division I basketball championships.”
While basketball enthusiasts around the nation rejoiced with the news that meaningful games would soon be returning to the hardwood, fans of the Ancient Eight were left wondering if the league would move from its July 8 decision that teams could not participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester.
The short answer is no.
“There are no changes at this time,” responded Ivy League associate executive director, strategic communications & external relations Matt Panto to a request from Ivy Hoops Online. “The decision we have made is it (hold on competition) goes through the (end of the) fall term.”
Yale women stymie Penn to create second-place scrum in Ivy standings
With two weeks to go till the Ivy women’s tournament begins, Yale moved into a second-place tie with Penn in the conference standings, 71-54.
Since Columbia kept pace with Yale and Penn at 7-4 in league play by winning at Harvard, the odds seem good that those three will join Princeton in the tournament in Boston.
Roxy Barahman had a stellar night for Yale (17-7 overall), and the defensive-minded Penn team (17-8) had no answer for her. The senior guard scored 29 points on 10-for-21 shooting, including 4-for-7 from beyond the arc, and served up five assists as the Bulldogs won at the Palestra for the first time in seven years.
Columbia defeats Yale, 74-65, moves into third-place tie as Sienna Durr leads the way
After Yale cut a 16-point third-quarter deficit to two early in the fourth quarter, Columbia got four three-pointers from four different players to pull away and grab a 74-65 win over the Bulldogs at the John J. Lee Amphitheater on Saturday evening.
The two teams battled evenly through most of the first quarter, when Tori Andrew hit a driving left side layup to put Yale (16-7, 6-4 Ivy) up 13-11. The Lions (15-8, 6-4) responded with a 21-2 run between the last two minutes of the first quarter and the first 3:15 of the second frame to open up a 17-point lead.
Yale completes season sweep of Cornell, takes sole possession of third place
If revenge was the motive, then call it mission accomplished for Yale.
Cornell swept Yale last season to knock the Bulldogs out of Ivy League Tournament contention. Yale completed this season’s sweep of the Big Red last night at John J. Lee Amphitheater, 65-51.
The game was nip and tuck early on, but Yale (16-6, 6-3 Ivy) ended the half with a 32-27 lead behind the clutch shooting of Ellen Margaret Andrews. The Bulldogs were 4-for-6 from 3 in the first half. Andrews posted 18 points for the game to lead her squad.
Penn stomps Dartmouth again, 67-31, as Eleah Parker dominates undersized Big Green
For the Dartmouth’s women, it was a different location but the same disaster when they faced Penn in Philly on Friday night.
When the two teams met three weekends ago in Hanover, the Quakers had just lost their fourth game in a row, but the New Hampshire winter air revived them and they shut down the Big Green, 66-33.
Friday’s game at the Palestra was somehow even more lopsided, 67-31. Penn (16-5, 6-2 Ivy) held Dartmouth (8-14, 2=7) to a woeful 19.7% shooting from the field with 18 turnovers. Penn, by contrast, shot 41.8% from the field and had 11 turnovers.
Penn takes a squeaker at Yale
This game didn’t go anything like the coaches drew it up. But Penn came back with some clutch plays in a defensive struggle to beat Yale, 53-51, Saturday afternoon in New Haven.
Credit two starting guards for Penn (15-5, 5-2), senior captains Phoebe Sterba and Kendall Grasela, with pulling this one out after Yale (15-6, 5-3) built a 10-point lead in the second half. The Quakers’ headliners, junior center Eleah Parker and first-year shooting guard Kayla Padilla, had long stretches when they couldn’t buy a basket, but Sterba canned 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds, and Grasela — who directs the offense while averaging just 3.5 shots a game — had 11 points and five assists.