Ryan Betley

Harvard men’s and women’s basketball release ’18-’19 schedules

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Harvard Athletics announced the schedules for its men’s and women’s basketball teams last Thursday.

Men’s schedule

Men’s key non-conference games:

11/9/18 vs Northeastern
The Huskies (23-10, 14-4 CAA in ’17-’18) were co-champions of the CAA last year, and lost the title game to the College of Charleston.  One of its 23 wins came against Harvard, 77-61, at Matthews Arena last November.  The team returns senior forward Vasa Pusica (first-team All-CAA and runner-up for Player of the Year), junior guard Shawn Occeus (Defensive Player of the Year), junior guard Bolden Brace (Sixth Man of the Year), and sophomore forward Tomas Murphy (All-Rookie team).

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No. 16 Penn vs. No. 1 Kansas: Keys to making history

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My range of emotions on Sunday swung from unadulterated joy as I rushed the Palestra floor to celebrate Penn’s 68-65 win over Harvard to mouth-agape shock as I stood in the back of Houston Hall at Penn’s selection show watch party and saw the Quakers on the 16 line against Kansas.

As fellow IHO contributor Steven Tydings and I rode the bus home to New York, I started to think of a plan for the Quakers to do the impossible and topple a No. 1 seed for the first time in men’s NCAA Tournament history.

The basic points of that plan, some of which you’ve probably already heard, are below:

Penn will win if …

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The “Penn”dulum swings, and the Palestra does too: Penn defeats Harvard to clinch first NCAA Tournament berth in 11 years

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Penn basketball is back to the Big Dance.

The Red & Blue ended an 11-year absence from the NCAA Tournament by coming out on top in a see-saw Ivy League Tournament final at the Palestra Sunday, besting No. 1 Harvard, 68-65.

No. 2 Penn ended the game on a 13-7 run in the final 4:49, the decisive run in a game full of ups and downs for both teams. taking a 66-60 lead into the final minute before hanging on with two final Ryan Betley free throws with 11 seconds left that upped Penn’s lead to the final score. Two would-be game-tying three-point attempts from Justin Bassey and Christian Juzang missed the mark, and a partisan Penn crowd stormed the Palestra floor:

 

Penn had held a 48-35 lead with 14:06 to play and maintained a double-digit lead with under eight minutes left, but Bassey and Juzang willed Harvard back from the foul line and the three-point line, with Chris Lewis converting inside after a 3-for-10 shooting start.

Poor shooting helped put the Quakers in a 32-21 hole with just under three minutes to go in the first half.

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IHO 2017-18 All-Ivy Awards – Men’s

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As selected by Ivy Hoops Online’s contributors, here are the IHO 2017-18 All-Ivy Awards:

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

AJ Brodeur, Penn (So., F – Northborough, Mass.)

In Penn coach Steve Donahue’s system of interchangeable parts, Brodeur has proven he can do it all.

Donahue moved Brodeur from center to power forward to make way for Max Rothschild at the five this season, and in nonconference play, Brodeur wasn’t really the focal point of the offense and excelled by not forcing shots outside of Penn’s ensemble offensive system. Instead, Brodeur helped power Penn to a 9-5 record before January in other ways, cleaning the defensive boards, aggressively fortifying a surprisingly strong defense through blocks and steals, and deft passing in the paint and on the perimeter (notching seven assists in Penn’s 78-70 win at Dayton).

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Ivy weekend roundup – Mar. 2-3, 2018

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What a wild and crazy Ivy season the 2017-18 campaign turned out to be.

The Ivy League finished first among all 32 Division I conferences with a whopping 39.3 percent of conference games being decided by four points or less or in overtime, a record for any conference in the KenPom era dating back to 2001-02, per Kevin Whitaker of NYC Buckets.

Every Ivy squad played in at least one league game that went to overtime, and the extra periods helped define at least two squads’ seasons in-conference: Harvard went 3-0 in such contests en route to a shared Ivy League championship, while Princeton went 1-4 to seal its first finish outside the league’s top four in 10 years.

Ivies went 39-17 at home in conference play, tops in Division I a season after they went just 28-28, worst in Division I in 2017.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Feb. 16-17, 2018

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The Ancient Eight aren’t so ancient anymore.

Penn ranks highest in experience in the Ivy League but still ranks just 140th nationally. Princeton (144th) and Columbia (244th) round out the Ivies in the top 250, while Cornell, Brown and Harvard are all sub-300 in experience at 306th, 334th and 335th respectively.

It hasn’t always been this way.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Feb. 9-10, 2018

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Some unexpected contributors carried their teams on their backs this weekend, yielding varied results.

In Harvard’s 66-51 win over Princeton Friday night, the Crimson offense flowed through sophomore guard Christian Juzang, who posted 20 points – 12 more than his career high up to that point – on 6-for-10 shooting alongside four assists. Columbia rookie guard Gabe Stefanini notched a career-high 20 points in just 27 minutes in the Lions’ wild overtime loss at Brown Saturday night, 17 of them coming in the second half or extra period. After scoring just 26 points in the previous five games, Yale freshman guard Azar Swain registered 25 this weekend, his 7-for-12 (58.3 percent) clip from deep lifting an Elis squad that had been hurting from three-point range.

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Penn pounds Princeton, 82-65, at Jadwin Gym

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Last month, Penn reached for the reset button on its rivalry versus Princeton, beating the Tigers for the first time since 2014 with a 76-70 triumph at the Palestra.

Tuesday night, Penn slammed that reset button down.

Penn stomped Princeton at Jadwin Gym Tuesday night, smacking Princeton, 82-65, for its first win at Jadwin since 2009, first regular season sweep of the Tigers since 2008.

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Ivy Power Poll – Jan. 28, 2018

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1. Penn (13-6, 3-0 Ivy)

After Penn let Temple slip away at the Palestra last weekend, it got Big 5 revenge Saturday with a 67-56 win over St. Joseph’s, displaying a stout defense that had Steve Donahue singing its praises after the game.

“The story of our team, and our season, is our defense,” Donahue said according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Playing two bigs, with the defensive numbers we have right now … we’re way different than last year, and way ahead.”

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Q&A with Princeton assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Brett MacConnell

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Ivy Hoops Online’s Richard Kent caught up with Brett MacConnell, an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Princeton. He is a Rutgers graduate and a long-time New Jersey resident.

Ivy Hoops Online: Tell us your thoughts about this most recent Princeton-Penn game?
Brett MacConnell: Penn was tougher. They dominated the paint. (Ryan) Betley wasn’t a surprise. We couldn’t get big stops at the end. We are a young team with some new guys.

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