Harvard all-time moment No. 2: Harvard stuns New Mexico

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because the Crimson wreak havoc on 10-year contracts.

Harvard won its third straight Ivy League title in 2013, but the Crimson were happy just to be mentioned on the nationally televised Selection Sunday Show, as this would be only its second NCAA Tournament appearance. When the matchup with the 11th-ranked, third-seeded Mountain West Champion New Mexico Lobos was finally announced, Harvard players and fans gulped at the daunting challenge that lay ahead. Then they sat on the edges of their seats to hear the CBS analysts’ take: “I like this New Mexico team to go to the Final Four!” Doug Gottlieb said enthusiastically. With that, the Crimson headed to Salt Lake City as 11-and-a-half point underdogs.

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Harvard all-time moment No. 3: Harvard beats Yale in 2015 Ivy playoff

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because Jonah Travis is a master Tweeter.

With 28 seconds remaining in March 7’s Yale-Dartmouth game, Harvard had a 0.41 percent chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament (according to KenPom). The Crimson needed Dartmouth to pull out a miracle victory to force a one-game playoff between Harvard and Yale, and even then the Crimson would need to win that game to earn an NCAA bid. By the time those 28 seconds elapsed, Dartmouth had taken care of the “miracle victory” part of the equation, setting the stage for an epic Ivy League battle at the Palestra between two archrivals who had split the season series.

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Harvard all-time moment No. 4: Harvard Defeats Cincinnati in the 2014 NCAA Tournament

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because its students are “fraudsters and liars” … according to 1968 Penn alumnus Donald Trump.

In 2014, the Crimson capped off a fourth consecutive “Ivy banner” season with a third straight trip to the Big Dance. A year after being huge underdogs versus New Mexico in the NCAA Tournament, however, the Crimson were a popular upset pick in the always interesting “twelve-five game.” Harvard was looking for a second straight first-round win, but Cincinnati, which had shared the American Athletic Conference regular season title with Louisville and had knocked off eventual national champion UConn, was no pushover.

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Harvard all-time moment No. 6: Harvard hangs with Michigan State in the Round of 32

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because Crimson uber-donor Steve Ballmer can stick his entire hand in his mouth.

The Sweet Sixteen was the hallowed ground Harvard had never reached since the tournament expanded to 64 teams. The only thing standing in their way in the 2014 NCAA Tournament was the seventh ranked Michigan State Spartans. Harvard held its own for much of the first half but trailed by 12 at the break. The start of the second half was no better, and Harvard trailed by 16 with 15:48 remaining. Then-senior captain Brandyn Curry nailed two threes to start a comeback for the ages.

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Wesley Saunders agrees to deal with New York Knicks

Shams Charania of RealGM reported Friday night that former Harvard standout Wesley Saunders has agreed to a partially guaranteed deal by the New York Knicks. Further details have not yet been released.

Saunders, 2013-14 Ivy Player of the Year and a 2015 graduate, averaged just 3.4 points per game during his NBA Summer League stint with the Utah Jazz.

Partially guaranteed contracts signed mid-summer usually result in a training camp audition, which is still great news for Saunders, who now has the chance to follow Jeremy Lin, a 2010 Harvard graduate, as a former Crimson star turned Knicks standout.

Saunders averaged 12.6 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game for his collegiate career, including 16.6 points and 6.1 boards per contest last season.

Knicks blog Posting & Toasting notes that the Knicks have plenty of backcourt minutes available, meaning that “Saunders can gun for a full guarantee and perhaps a share of those minutes.”

Ivy League office selects all-time best women’s and men’s teams

The Ivy League did something interesting Thursday – it tweeted out its all-time best women’s and men’s teams as selected by the Ivy League office, consisting of five players each. Check out the league’s selections with thoughts after the jump…

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Ian Hummer will play for Sacramento Kings in NBA Summer League

(AP Photo/Mel Evans)
(AP Photo/Mel Evans)

The Sacramento Kings need help.  Like, lots of help.

Enter Ian Hummer.

The 2013 Ivy Player of the Year and Princeton graduate is one of 16 players named to the Kings’ 2015 Summer League team Tuesday. Hummer joins big names Willie Cauley-Stein, David Stockton (yes, John Stockton’s son) and a host of others.

Hummer currently plays for Nilan Bisons Loimaa of Finland and joins Wesley Saunders as the second former Ivy League Player of the Year to be competing for a NBA roster spot.

Hummer was invited to the Los Angeles Lakers’ pre-summer league camp in 2013 and played professional club basketball in Germany in 2014.

Wesley Saunders will play for Utah Jazz in NBA Summer League

The new Jazzman.
The new Jazzman.

Per reports from RealGM and SB Nation, recent Harvard graduate Wesley Saunders will play in the NBA Summer League next month as a member of the Utah Jazz.

The news is not surprising, as Saunders participated in a pre-draft workout for the Jazz on June 15, according to Jody Genessy of the Deseret News.

Utah will play six games this summer plus a tournament at the end of the slate.

Of the 13 players who played for the Summer League Jazz in 2014, only four actually played for the Jazz in the 2014-15 regular season, and only one of those four players were undrafted (Ian Clark).

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Will Wesley Saunders be drafted?

cWesley Saunders 8

Wesley Saunders is looking to make history on Thursday night. If Saunders hears his name called during the NBA Draft, he will become the first Ivy League player to be drafted in 20 years (Jerome Allen, 1995), and the first Harvard player ever to be drafted. If Saunders finds his way to the NBA through the draft or a different route, he will be only the eleventh player in the Ivy League’s storied, 60-year history to reach the Association. Yes, Wesley Saunders could be in rarefied air.

Saunders torched Ivy and high-major defenses alike in his illustrious four years with the Crimson, and he has certainly gotten the attention of NBA scouts, who reserved themselves seats at most of the Crimson’s home games this past season. Wesley Saunders may be a once-in-a-decade Ivy League player, but how does he compare to the top college prospects in the land who are also vying for NBA contracts? Here are a few possible scenarios to get you set for the draft…

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Princeton on the prowl under Mitch Henderson

I wrote a week ago that Steve Donahue is off to a great start as head coach at Penn.

But it’s Princeton’s head coach who has a program primed for an outstanding finish.

Mitch Henderson’s next season at the Tigers’ helm will be his fifth, and with the talent he has returning, it should also mark his first Ivy League championship.

This coming season, the Tigers will return all five starters and six of the first eight in their 2014-15 rotation. That means Princeton returns virtually all of its potent offense from last season too, one that finished 92nd in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency (behind only Harvard among Ivies). And Princeton was the highest scoring offense in the Ivy League last season at 68.9 points per game. The Tigers easily led the league in field goal and three-point field goal percentage a season ago.

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