A win-probability chart of Yale”s most exhilarating victory last season, a 20-point comeback at Columbia. Yale will need more of that magic this year after losing Greg Mangano and Reggie Willhite to graduation. (Chart from KenPom.com)
In 2011-12: 19-10, 9-5 in “11-12, 4th place.
A Look Back: The 2011-12 season was a year that Yale had been building towards for quite a while with all-league big man Greg Mangano becoming a senior and a strong supporting cast having formed around him. A successful run through the non-conference slate and the emergence of Reggie Willhite as a team leader and all-around stat stuffer made this Bulldogs team a trendy dark horse pick entering the Ivy season. A comprehensive dismantling of a good Vermont team and a victory at Rhode Island had Eli fans dreaming of dancing for the first time in Coach Jones” tenure. The Bulldogs got safely through the home-and-home with Brown unscathed, setting up perhaps the most highly anticipated hardwood version of “The Game” in decades. A raucous atmosphere awaited the Crimson favorites as they entered John J. Lee on January 27th, 2012. Unfortunately for Yale fans, Harvard put forth an utterly dominating defensive performance, holding Yale to 35 points and coasting to a 65-35 thumping. The Bulldogs were not yet ready for primetime it seemed.
Be sure to check back every now and then as we”ll be dropping in from time to
time with news on recruiting, updates on graduati
ng seniors” professional aspirations, and looks ahead to next season. We”ll also spend the dog days of summer making some aesthetic improvements to the site.
Pittsburgh sprinted past Princeton in the CBI quarterfinals behind an explosive first half on Monday night. The Panthers shot 8-14 from three in the opening frame and rolled off a 14-0 run to close the half, providing the comfortable 49-25 lead at the break. While Princeton managed to cut the Pitt lead to 11 on a Hummer layup
with 7:19 to play, the
Best Way To Make Your Ex Girlfriend Want You Back. text your ex back why does text your ex back work How To Get Your Ex BackHow To Win Back A Woman
huge deficit was too much to overcome as Pitt ended the Tigers” season with an 82-61 defeat. The night was not a complete downer for the Tigers though, as senior guard Doug Davis hit a three pointer with just 8:40 to play in his final game that pushed him into second place among Princeton”s all-time leading scorers. Davis finished his time at Princeton with 1,550 points, four points ahead of Kit Mueller. All-time Princeton leading scorer Bill Bradley scored a remarkable 2,503 points in his time as a Tiger.
climb all the way back from an 18-point deficit, falling to a dangerous Vanderbilt team 79-70 in Albuquerque. Rivard led the Crimson with 20 points on 6-7 shooting. Harvard”s usual advantage down low was negated due to big Festus Ezeli, who finished with 8 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks. The Commodores were led by the sharpshooting John Jenkins and his 27 points on 7-12 shooting. A 14-3 run that began with 4:30 to play brought Harvard within five, but the Crimson would get no closer. The loss ends an historic season for the Ivy champions with a final record of 26-5.
Penn moved on to the quarterfinals of the CBI Thursday night, with a convincing 74-63 victory over Quinnipiac in front of a small crowd of 1,268 at the Palestra. Quinnipiac went ahead 5-4 five minutes into the game on a Zaid Hearst jumper, but Steve Rennard answered with
a quick three and the Quakers would never trail again. Penn”s backcourt had a monster night with Miles Cartwright dropping in 23 points, grabbing 9 rebounds, and dishing out 6 assists. Zack Rosen added 16 points and 9 assists. Perhaps most impressively, the two guards tallied only one turnover between them. Penn moves on to host Butler on Monday. A win against one of March”s winningest teams of the past few years would push the Quakers into the CBI semis, where they could be matched up against, you guessed it, the Princeton Tigers.
Rosen and the Quakers get their first shot at the postseason under Coach Allen as they host Quinnipiac on Wednesday night. (Photo Credit: pennathletics.com)
Penn has accepted a bid to the College Basketball Invitational Tournament and will host the Quinnipiac Bobcats in the first round on Wednesday night
at 7:30PM. Zack Rosen and Tyler Bernardini will get a well-deserved chance to play once more in front of the hometown crowd at the Palestra, and the underclassmen will get some helpful tournament experience. Quinnipiac
will be a tough opponent for the Quakers, as the NEC”s fifth-placed team led the nation in offensive rebounding percentage. The Bobcats are relentless on the glass, averaging 43 rebounds per game while playing at an average tempo. For dk – Denne side giver dig Iphone lobbyen, hvor du har oversigten over de spil du kan spille fra din Iphone. an undersized squad like Penn, it”s going to be a true challenge to compete on the boards. Quinnipiac is led by senior guard James Johnson and sophomore forward Ike Azotam, who is averaging nearly a double-double with 15.9 ppg and 9.5 rpg.
Princeton's victory over Penn clinches the outright title and NCAA bid for Harvard. Party on Cambridge.
Princeton came out firing and Penn”s cold first-half shooting was too much to recover from, even for Zack Rosen, as the Tigers held off the Quakers 62-52 in the season finale at Jadwin.
With Penn”s loss, Harvard claims the Ivy throne with a 12-2 record and will represent the league in the NCAA Tournament for
the first time in 66 years. Various bracketologists have predicted that the Crimson will be given a 9 or a 10 seed, though anything between an 8 and a 12 seems plausible. The Cantabs will gather together for the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on Sunday evening to find out exactly where they”re going and who they”re playing.
Harvard players, who have midterms this week, took a break from their studying to tweet celebratory Big Dance-related comments, including Keith Wright, who tweeted Whitney Houston”s iconic “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” music video and Brandyn Curry, who tweeted “LET ME GET MY DANCING SHOES ON”. Surely, the celebrations will continue deep into the night in Cambridge.
Jesse Agel leaves Brown with a 39-79 overall record in four disappointing seasons. (Photo Credit: brownbears.com)
Head Coach Jesse Agel was fired on Monday after four years as the head coach of Brown. Agel”s Ivy record was 14-42 during his tenure, winning 3, 5,
4, and 2 league games respectively in the years since 2008-09. The Bears struggled in all four seasons, especially on the defensive end, as Brown ranked 7th or 8th in defensive efficiency every year. The most frustrating part for Brown fans was that Agel did manage to attract some solid talent to Providence; he was simply unable to put it all together. This final year was a disaster for reasons at least partially beyond Agel”s control as the entire starting five of the Bears” squad suffered injuries that kept them out of games at some point in the season, including two projected starters being out for the whole season in Tucker Halpern and Rafael Maia.
Keith Wright and Kyle Casey shared a hug after Harvard clinched a share of the Ivy League title in a 67-63 win at Cornell. (Photo Credit: thecrimson.com)
Best (Share of) Title Clincher: While Harvard rode its big men on the block to a close victory on Friday, it was the Crimson”s perimeter play that won the game on Saturday at Cornell. Harvard shot 12-26 from three, led by four second-half triples from Brandyn Curry. Up 12 with eight minutes to play, it looked like the Crimson would be able to coast to a share of the conference title, but Cornell made a late 16-6 run behind Chris Wroblewski that got the Red within two at 57-55. Wroblewski missed a tough layup with 3:20 left though, and Cornell only managed two stops the rest of the way as Harvard got nine straight points from Oliver McNally to finish off the game (including another impressive 4-4 performance at the line). McNally led the Crimson with 17 and Curry added 12. Kyle Casey pitched in with 11, while Keith Wright had 8 points and 11 rebounds. For Cornell, Wroblewski had a great night in his finale at Newman, finishing with 19 points and 7 assists in the upset bid. Galal Cancer looked under control and more mature in his final game as a freshman, notching 8 points, 3 assists, and just 2 turnovers in 26 minutes against the league”s best defense. With the close victory, Harvard earns at least a share of the Ivy title. Crimson eyes will be glued to ESPN3 on Tuesday night as a Penn loss to Princeton will hand the Cantabs their first NCAA bid in 66 years. A Penn victory will force a playoff (most likely next Saturday at Yale from what we hear)
for the second straight year. Would Harvard”s 26-5 at-large profile with five Top 100 wins be enough to garner an at-large bid if Penn wins the playoff? The Crimson would prefer not to find out.
Jeremy Lin and Spike Lee took in the riveting overtime contest between Harvard and Columbia Friday night at Levien Gymnasium. (Photo Credit: newsday.com)
A truly dramatic Friday night in the Ivy League ended with all the favorites pulling out victories.
Best Game: We were treated to a classic Ivy battle at Levien Gymnasium last night as Harvard prevailed 77-70 over Columbia in overtime. A packed gym that included Jeremy Lin and Spike Lee created a raucous atmosphere for a contest with massive title implications and the Crimson and Lions did not disappoint. Harvard jumped out to an early ten-point lead behind easy inside scores from Keith Wright and Kyle Casey. Late in the first half, Columbia settled down and started taking away the inside pass, creating turnovers that helped the Lions get back in the game. Freshmen Alex Rosenberg and Cory Osetkowski combined for 12 critical first-half points to bring the Lions within 34-30 at the half.
The second half was a back-and-forth affair as Harvard alternated between the block and the perimeter, showing their versatility. Columbia countered with Brian Barbour, who solidified his spot on the All-Ivy First Team with a jawdropping performance down the stretch against the League”s best backcourt defender in Brandyn Curry. Time after time, Barbour managed to penetrate, get to the bucket and finish from tough angles at the rim.
With four minutes to go, Harvard led 59-53. With Columbia on the ropes and needing a bucket, Harvard forced the Lions into a long possession. As the shot clock wound down, Cisco kicked the ball to the top of the key to Cory Osetkowski, the 6″10″ big man who had yet to hit a three all year. Osetkowski banked home the critical trey ball and Levien erupted. Columbia
added a Barbour jumper on its next trip down the floor before Brandyn Curry nailed a three to push the lead back to four with less than two minutes remaining. Columbia got it down to two and got the ball back after a Wright travel, and Barbour found a way to tie the game with another shifty drive. Harvard held for the final shot, but McNally”s three didn”t fall.
In overtime, the teams traded defensive stops for three minutes before Laurent Rivard and Kyle Casey hit two dagger threes that gave Harvard an advantage that they wouldn”t relinquish. The result was a clutch, hard-fought victory for Harvard, drawing them within one win of another Ivy title, and yet another heartbreaking loss for Columbia. Harvard now faces Cornell. A win gives the Crimson at least a share of the league championship, while a win coupled with a Penn loss to Yale would give Harvard the outright title and the NCAA bid. Columbia will host Dartmouth on Senior Night.
