princeton

Ivy hoops roundup – Commitments amid uncertainty

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Despite the uncertainty that has come with COVID-19, Ivy hoops figures are still making plenty of moves.

Dunphy steps up again 

In case you missed it, Temple named former Penn coach Fran Dunphy acting athletic director effective July 1 last week, 15 months after his 30-year head coaching career ended at Temple, which opted to hand over the coaching reins to assistant Aaron McKie and have Dunphy step aside after the 2018-19 season. Dunphy will succeed Patrick Kraft, who will be departing Temple to become Boston College’s athletic director on July 1. (Penn athletic director M. Grace Calhoun was also reportedly under consideration for the BC job, per the Boston Herald.) Dunphy is not expected to be a candidate for the athletic director’s job, but that could change, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported that Temple hoped to have an athletic director named within 90 days.

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Ivy hoops community continues to reflect on racial injustice

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Nearly a month after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis officer while three other officers stood by, the Ivy hoops community has continued to speak out against racial injustice and in support of people of color.

Another introspective from Nat Graham

Penn men’s associate head coach and 1997 graduate Nat Graham, who is White, on Sunday published a post on Medium thoughtfully reflecting on the structural advantages his race gave him in life and the “not so equal” separation between his Miami neighborhood and that of his Black high school teammate who Graham found out later eventually got his teeth knocked out while in prison.

Graham writes:

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How Princeton women’s basketball clawed its way to the top of the Ivy League

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The 2019-20 Princeton women’s basketball team’s campaign ended all too quickly due to COVID-19, but not before demonstrating the enduring strength of the program under a new coaching staff. (Princeton Athletics)

The 2019-20 Princeton women’s basketball team was by no means a “one-hit wonder.”

It was the product of a process begun more than a dozen years ago. Successful coaches do more than win games; they build a program, an organization that can produce highly competitive teams year after year. Successful programs are designed to withstand graduations, injuries, and the inevitable clash of egos and personalities in groups of a dozen or more highly competitive and talented individuals. To achieve success in college basketball over time is incredibly difficult. To achieve credibility on the national scene with a mid-major program and no athletic scholarships defies belief. Princeton has done that.

In 1970, the 225th year of Princeton’s existence, school administrators decided to adopt the revolutionary idea of coeducation, not coincidentally, I have always believed, in the year following my graduation. One year later, varsity basketball was introduced as a women’s intercollegiate sport. The Tigers enjoyed early success, winning the first four Ivy titles following the launching of a women’s postseason tournament in 1975. (The women played a postseason tournament until 1982. In 2017, the present tournament format was adopted. The top four men’s and women’s teams compete at the same site over the same weekend to determine the league’s NCAA representatives.)

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Ivy hoops figures continue to speak out against racial injustice and killings of black people

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The Ivy hoops community has continued to protest against the injustice that black people face in America in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis officer while three other officers stood last Monday.

Harvard men’s hoops 2018 grad Chris Egi was the subject of a SportsNet feature Tuesday highlighting the Markham, Ontario native’s drive to launch the No More Names campaign, a fundraising and awareness building organization aiming for criminal injustice and police brutality.

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A take on the top 10 teams in Ivy men’s hoops history

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Editor’s note: Ivy Hoops Online writer Richard Kent has followed Ancient Eight men’s basketball for decades and after consultation with players, coaches and fans has compiled his personal list of the top 10 men’s hoops teams since the formation of the Ivy League as we know it in 1955. No top 10 list in this category is going to look the same, so if you have a top 10 of your own that you’d like to share, please share it in a comment below. 

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 27, 2020

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Cornell University has announced several 2020-21 calendar options given the threat of COVID-19, though nothing has been decided and the university said the likely course of action will be a mix of these options:

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 11, 2020

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Yale women’s incoming class announced

Yale women’s basketball announced its three-member Class of 2024 Monday. The class consists of:

  • Brenna McDonald, a 6-foot-2 forward from Natick, Mass. who was named to the Boston Globe Dream Team her senior year
  • Haley Sabol, a 6-foot-2 forward from Pittsburgh who was a first-team all-state selection her junior and senior years for Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va.
  • Elles van der Maas, a 6-foot-2 guard from Sydney who made the 2018 All-Australian team

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Cornell, Harvard, Penn and Princeton school spirit masks to benefit Boston Children’s Hospital

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In February, former Penn student-athlete and Ivy Hoops Online contributor Erica Denhoff launched an Etsy shop with items such as hair bows, hand-knit scarves and mascot photos she’d taken in an effort to help increase school spirit for the Ivies.

Now Erica, who wrote about the importance of school spirit for IHO back in February, has updated the Etsy shop with Cornell, Harvard and Penn face masks with a critically important beneficiary in mind. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Boston Children’s Hospital, where she is a clinical research manager. If you’re so inclined, please buy a mask. The photos below are from Erica’s Etsy shop.

This post was updated to note that Dartmouth and Princeton face cloths are now available and Cornell face cloths are sold out. 

 

Bella Alarie looking ahead to bright future with Dallas Wings

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New Dallas Wing Bella Alarie looked ahead to her future in the WNBA in an interview with Ivy Hoops Online. (WNBA)

Ivy Hoops Online caught up with all-time Princeton great and new Dallas Wing Bella Alarie to see how she’s been doing since she became a WNBA draftee last week.

She may be turning pro, but she’s still got her senior thesis to finish.

“I am getting there,” Alarie said. “But I admit the week of the draft was distracting. Now that I have a little breather I can finish it up. It’s due in a few days and I’m going to make it.”

Alarie played primarily in the post as a college player. She sees herself as a stretch four, and the Wings staff agrees.

“I played guard as a teenager and didn’t reach my full height until I got to Princeton,” Alarie said. “I was very comfortable handling the ball and running the floor. The Wings expect me to shoot threes and play at a fast pace. I am really looking forward to the whole thing.”

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Bella Alarie goes to Dallas with the fifth pick in the WNBA Draft

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Bella Alarie is a Dallas Wing now. (WNBA)

Princeton’s Bella Alarie didn’t have to wait long to hear her name, as she was called with the fifth overall pick by the Dallas Wings in Friday night’s WNBA Draft.

“It’s been my lifelong dream to play in the WNBA, so it was a really special moment,” Alarie told WNBA media. “I’m glad I got to share it with my family.”

Earlier in the week, Dallas President, CEO and General Manager Greg Bibb discussed his interest in Alarie with Ivy Hoops Online and sealed the deal with the team’s second pick of the first round.

Bella becomes the second member of the family chosen in the first round, following her father, Mark, who went to the Denver Nuggets with the 18th pick in the 1986 NBA Draft.  She also joins former teammate Leslie Robinson as the only other Tiger to be drafted in the WNBA and equals the highest spot ever by an Ivy League hoopster with Harvard’s Allison Feaster (1998; Los Angeles Sparks).

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