Ivy news roundup – March 31, 2017

A number of Ivy Leaguers earned postseason award recognition.  Penn’s Michelle Nwokedi was named to the ECAC first team, while Cornell’s Nia Marshall and Harvard’s Katie Benzan were named to the second team.  Princeton’s Steven Cook was named to the NABC District 13 first team, while fellow Tigers Spencer Weisz and Devin Cannady, as well as Harvard’s Bryce Aiken, Brown’s Steven Spieth and Dartmouth’s Evan Boudreaux were selected for the second team.  Aiken was also chosen for the ECAC second team.  Cook was also named to the Allstate NABC Good Works team and CoSida Academic All-America.  Weisz, the men’s Ivy League Player of the Year, was chosen an Honorable Mention All-America.  Tigers’ coach Mitch Henderson was selected as the NABC District 13 Coach of the Year, as well as chosen as one of 20 finalists for the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year.

The Yale Daily News previews the incoming first-year class for the women’s basketball team.  While losing three seniors, the Bulldogs are adding four new players to try and move from sixth place to the upper division in 2017-18.  Alex Cade, a 6’ 1” forward from Cleveland, is a defensive specialist who averaged a triple double in points, rebounds and blocks last season.  Ellen Margaret Andrews, a 5’ 11” shooting guard from Dallas, was the 2015-16 Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Player of the Year. During her junior campaign, she averaged 34.0 points, 15.5 rebounds and 4.0 steals a game.  Tori Andrew, a 5’ 10” guard, selected to the Minnesota Star Tribune All-Metro First Team, averaged 21.3 points a game, while shooting 49% from the floor and 81% from the free throw line.  Alessandra Aguirre, a 5’ 9” guard from La Jolla, averaged 15.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.2 steals and 2.2 assists per game.

Coach Brian Earl has added his second JUCO transfer in the last two weeks as Steve Julian has committed to Cornell.  Julian, a two-star 6’6” 200 pound small forward, has spent the last two years at Kaskaskia College of Illinois.  The Louisville native played 31 games this year, averaging 10.5 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.1 blocks a game.  In his first-year, he played in 32 games, averaging 8.2 points and 7.0 rebounds a game.  While Julian hit field goals at 51.3 and 52.7 percent over his two seasons, he shot free throws at 64.4 and 55.1 percent.  According to Kaskaskia coach Brian Hancock, “Steve has been a consistent performer for the past two seasons at both ends of the floor.  This season he finished second in the district in rebounding and guarded many of our opponent’s top offensive players.  A very versatile forward whose athleticism and energy sparked our team throughout the season”.

Brown gained a new member of the Class of 2021 on Saturday the 25th and lost one on Tuesday the 28th.  Jake Shaper, a two-star 6’3” shooting guard from the Kinkaid School in Houston, chose the Bears over offers from Lamar and Sam Houston State.  Meanwhile, Paul Newman, a two-star 6’9” power forward from St. Andrew’s School, has decommitted from Brown, according to Verbal Commits and Newman’s high school coach.

According to Harvard Athletics, Mike Roux has been promoted from assistant coach to associate head coach of the women’s basketball team.  Roux has been with the Crimson for the last two years and acted as the team’s recruiting coordinator. Prior to his time in Cambridge, Roux was an assistant coach at New Hampshire.

Tuesday, Quinnipiac held a press conference announcing the hire of its new head men’s basketball coach, Baker Dunleavy.  Dunleavy, the former associate coach at Villanova and the son of Tulane basketball coach Mike Dunleavy, has added Yale assistant coach Anthony Goins to a staff that includes Shaun Morris and former Hofstra and Fordham coach Tom Pecora. Goins, a 2008 St. John’s graduate, had been on James Jones’ Yale staff from 2014-17 and Paul Cormier’s Dartmouth staff in 2013-14.

Saturday, Connecticut announced that associate head coach Glen Miller would be leaving the program. Miller, who worked under Kevin Ollie and Jim Calhoun, during two different stints with the Huskies, is a former head coach at Brown and Penn.  There was no word on which party ended the relationship. According to Dom Amore of the Hartford Courant, Miller has expressed interest in becoming a head coach again and was mentioned as a candidate for the then-vacant UMass-Amherst job that went to former Alabama and VCU coach Anthony Grant.

On March 8th, Judge Alfred Covello of the U.S. District Court in Hartford denied Jack Montague’s motion for a preliminary injunction preventing Yale University from enforcing his February 2016 expulsion for violation of University policies on sexual misconduct until his case against the university is decided.”

 Without his Yale degree, the former 2015-16 Bulldog captain argued that he will not be able to enter a post-graduate degree program or secure the same type of employment opportunities.  The judge concluded that any harms Montague alleges are quantifiable and can be remedied by monetary damages. Also, the judge felt the filing of the motion should have been done earlier than four months after the June 2016 complaint if there was a concern for irreparable harm.

Finally, it has been announced that Princeton will face Miami on Sat., Dec. 2 at American Airlines Arena as part of the Hoophall Miami Invitational.  The game will be part of a doubleheader with Kansas against Syracuse that will be televised nationally by the ESPN family of networks.

3 thoughts on “Ivy news roundup – March 31, 2017”

  1. Tough break for Brown. Unfortunately, it was an amiss ion issue; word is he really wanted to go to Brown.. Cedric Kuakamensa’s brother was also waiting to commit but could not get in!

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