Some Ivy updates before heading into Final Four weekends in Tampa and Minneapolis:
Miye Oni (Yale), Matt Morgan (Cornell) and Bryce Aiken (Harvard) will enter the NBA Draft. As a senior Morgan will stay in the Draft, while Oni and Aiken will have time to decide if they want to withdraw by May 29 and return to the Ancient Eight for their senior seasons.
The 2019 Ivy Players of the Year, Oni and Bella Alarie (Princeton) were name AP Honorable Mention All-American. Alarie was also named Honorable Mention by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). Aiken and Oni, meanwhile, were named to the Lou Henson All-America team, and are in the running for the National Player of the Year award, which goes to the nation’s best mid-major player.
Philadelphia’s Big 5 announced its yearly awards and the Quakers were well represented. On the men’s side, AJ Brodeur was named to the first team and Devon Goodman was named to the second team. Brodeur had been named to the second team All-Big 5 in his first two years at Penn. For women’s hoops, Eleah Parker was named Big 5 Player of the Year and first team All-Big 5, while head coach Mike McLaughlin was named the Coach of the Year. This is Parker’s first POY award and McLaughlin’s fourth. Seniors Ashley Russell and Princess Aghayere were both named second team All-Big 5. All the honorees will be on hand, along with Penn’s Big 5 Hall of Fame inductees Fran Dunphy (coach ’89-’06) and Mark Zoller (’03-’07), at the Big 5 Awards Banquet and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on April 15.
Morgan, Obi Okolie (Brown), Blake Reynolds (Yale), and Myles Stephens (Princeton) will represent the Ivy League at the 3X3U National Championship during Final Four weekend. The four seniors will compete for a $1,000 cash prize for every pool-play game won and $100,000 for the winner of the championship game to split. The winning team will also get to compete in the 2019 USA Basketball 3×3 Open National Championship.
All 32 conferences will take part and the Ivy League is a four team pool with the Big Ten, Horizon and Big Sky conferences. On Friday, the Ivy League will take on the Big Ten at 8:30 pm (CDT) and the team will have a double-header on Saturday with games against the Big Sky at 12:10 pm (CDT) and the Horizon at 3:20 pm (CDT). On Sunday morning, the final 16 teams will be bracketed and a champion will be crowned later that day. All games can be viewed on Twitter and ESPN2.
Morgan and Alex Copeland (Yale) will be playing in the Reese’s College All-Star Game. Both will be playing for the East team, coached by former NBA player Nate Robinson. The game will be played on Friday at 3:30 pm (CDT) and can be seen on the CBS Sports Network.
Cy Lippold (Dartmouth) is in Tampa for the WCBA “So You Want To Be A Coach” program. The objectives of the program are to increase the understanding and application of skills necessary to secure coaching positions in women’s basketball and increase the understanding and awareness of competencies necessary for success in coaching.
Quinton Adlesh will be graduating Columbia in the spring and heading to the left coast to join the USC Trojans as a graduate transfer. This past year, Adlesh started 12 of 28 games and was 10th in the league with 13.5 points per game. Over the last two years, the Arroyo Grande (CA) native made 142 three pointers with 40.5 percent accuracy.
In other graduate transfer news, former Yale basketball (and football) player Noah Yates lost his appeal to the NCAA and will not be allowed a second graduate transfer season at the University of Richmond.
The Columbia men, the Dartmouth women and the Yale women recently held their post-season banquets.
Among the awards given out for the Lions, Gabe Stefanini was named the team’s MVP and Patrick Tape was named Defensive Player of the Year.
For the Big Green, Isalys Quniones was named MVP. Lippold received the Leadership Award in no small part thanks to her return in the last two games after tearing her ACL trying to block a breakaway layup by Bella Alarie, who is 14 inches taller than the 5′ 0″ point guard.
The Yale awards went out to Alex Cade (Most Improved), Gabby Nelson (Leadership) and Megan Gorman (Contribution/Commitment). Gorman was also elected team captain for the 2019-2020 season.
Princeton’s associate head coach (and undefeated Tigers head coach), Brett MacConnell, will be one of 30 coaches across the nation to take part in the inaugural Collegiate Coaching Consortium in Minneapolis during Final Four weekend. The Consortium is a collaboration between AthleticDirectorU, the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the Center for Sports Leadership. The aim of the event is to develop new leaders in the coaching ranks, focusing on areas including ethics, professionalism and leadership.
Dartmouth recently promoted Pete Hutchins to the position of associate head coach for the men’s basketball team. Hutchins just completed his third year in Hanover. The Big Green also parted ways with assistant coach John Andrzejek after one year. Prior one year assisting at Johns Hopkins, Andrzejek spent 4 seasons working on Kyle Smith’s staffs at Columbia and San Francisco.
Speaking of Smith, the former Lions head coach (2010-2016), left San Francisco after three seasons to go to Washington State. Smith, who went 101-82 at Columbia with a 2016 CollegeInsider.com championship, signed a 6 year contract for $1.4 million per year. At his introductory press conference, he strongly hinted that he will be joined in Pullman by the starting point guard for UNC’s 1993 national championship team and former Columbia assistant (2014-2016) Derrick Phelps.
Caleb Calhoun of the All for Tennessee blog does a deep dive into the potential candidates to replace Holly Warwick at the University of Tennessee. After an exhaustive search, his No. 1 candidate is Princeton coach Courtney Banghart:
“Courtney Rosholt Banghart’s predecessor, Richard Barron, had five losing seasons in six years with the Princeton Tigers. Banghart, meanwhile, has had 10 straight winning seasons and made eight NCAA Tournaments in those 10 years. Nobody is more accomplished at the lower level than Banghart at this moment.
As a result, Banghart has to be the top candidate for the job. She consistently wins for her level. Sure, she doesn’t go far in the tournament, but that’s not the criteria at Princeton. With the Tennessee Lady Vols, the story would likely be different. As a result, she’s our top choice to replace Holly Warlick for now. Her decade-long track record despite her youth proves it.”
(The players and fans of seven Ivy League schools couldn’t agree more with Mr. Calhoun.)
Last, but not least, an article at the Harvard Crimson by captain Weisner Perez reflecting on his time with Harvard basketball.