Miye Oni signs contract with Utah Jazz

Miye Oni is under contract with the Utah Jazz.

Miye Oni is under contract as a Jazzman.

The Utah Jazz announced Monday that the team signed Oni to a contract, giving Oni an opportunity to keep his momentum toward a NBA career going after the Jazz got him in the NBA Draft last month with the No. 58 pick via a trade with the Golden State Warriors, becoming the first player drafted from the since Penn’s Jerome Allen.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Andy Siegel of Early Bird Rights reported on Twitter the contract was a three-year deal with only the first year guaranteed.

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Miye Oni shines in Utah Jazz’s third Summer League game

Miye Oni excelled for the Utah Jazz in its third and final Salt Lake City Summer League game Wednesday night, breaking out with an impressive performance after contributing little offensively in the Jazz’s first game and not playing at all in the second.

Oni contributed 17 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block as the Jazz posted an 84-81 win over the San Antonio Spurs at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

“The coaches gave me a lot of confidence to just go out there and play my game,” Oni said according to the Deseret News. “I was a little passive in Game 1. I thought I was just trying to let the game come to me maybe a little too much, so I wanted to take the opportunities I had still within the offense and just play good team basketball. I felt like we did that tonight.”

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Matt Morgan signs with Toronto Raptors for NBA Summer League

Cornell graduate Matt Morgan announced on Twitter Friday that he signed with the Toronto Raptors to play in the NBA Summer League after going undrafted in the NBA Draft:

“To be able to go back and prove that I’ve gotten better with time, to be able to go out in the Summer League and actually play for a team that just came off of an NBA championship, is surreal,” Morgan told Ithaca.com.

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Miye Oni’s outlook with the Utah Jazz

Miye Oni was not only selected in the NBA Draft but is headed to a team in the Utah Jazz that has roster space.

KSL.com noted in an article Friday that the franchise is in need of players to fill its roster after dealing Grayson Allen, Kyle Korver and Jae Crowder to the Memphis Grizzlies for Mike Conley two days prior.

A 2016 study by SLC Dunk, SB Nation’s Utah Jazz community,  found that for the 20 years between the 1996 NBA Draft and the 2015 NBA Draft, 401 of 600 second-round picks saw at least one game at the NBA level.

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Miye Oni becomes first Ivy player selected in NBA Draft since 1995

Miye Oni took game MVP honors after Yale’s 77-73 win over Miami on Dec. 1 Hoophall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena, impressing NBA scouts with his performance. (Next Ones)

The wait felt interminable.

For Miye Oni and supporters, it stretched five hours throughout nearly the entire NBA Draft; for Ivy League basketball at large, it lasted 24 years.

But early Friday morning, the wait ended as Oni, who chose last month to remain eligible for the NBA Draft and leave Yale after his junior season despite an uncertain draft stock, became the first Ivy League hoopster selected in the NBA Draft since Jerome Allen was taken 49th by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1995.

Oni was selected 58th by the Golden State Warriors but was picked for the Utah Jazz, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

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Miye Oni chooses to remain eligible for NBA Draft, leave Yale

Miye Oni took game MVP honors after Yale’s 77-73 win over Miami on Dec. 1 Hoophall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena. (Next Ones)

Miye Oni has made his decision, and he’s chasing his dream.

Yale Athletics announced Friday that Oni has elected to remain eligible for the NBA Draft to pursue his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA.

So his Yale basketball career is over.

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Princeton names Carla Berube its next head coach

Carla Berube was named the 10th head coach in Princeton women’s basketball history Wednesday night after being the head coach at Tufts for the past 17 seasons. (FIBA)

The wait is over.

Twenty-nine days after former Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart took the same position at North Carolina and with just two full days left until June, Princeton named Banghart’s successor Wednesday evening.

Carla Berube has been named the 10th head coach in Princeton women’s basketball history, succeeding Banghart after serving the past 17 seasons as head coach at Tufts, a Division III university.

Berube led Tufts to the NCAA Final Four in four consecutive seasons from 2014 through 2017, reaching the championship game in 2016 and 2017. Berube was the 2015 United States Marine Corps / Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year.

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Princeton head coaching position remains vacant, but Alarie’s Pan American Games group is set

Princeton’s two-time reigning Ivy Player of the Year Bella Alarie has found out who her draw for the start of the Pan American Games will be as a member of the United States Pan American Games Team.

FIBA announced Thursday that the USA will play at the 2019 Pan American Games women’s basketball competition in preliminary round Group B, along with Argentina, Colombia and U.S. Virgin Islands. Playing in preliminary round Group A will be Brazil, Canada, Paraguay and Puerto Rico.

The 2019 Pan American Games women’s basketball competition will take place August 6-10 at the Coliseo Eduardo Dibo in Lima, Peru, but tip-off times, the order of games and competition format are yet to be determined.

Also still to be determined is who Princeton’s next head coach will be, even as the list of sensible possibilities gets smaller while the coaching staff for Princeton’s last head coach gets bigger.

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Courtney Banghart named coach at North Carolina, ending dominant run at Princeton

Courtney Banghart compiled a 254-103 (.711) overall record and 137-31 Ivy record (.816) in 12 seasons at Princeton while winning 89 more games than any other coach in program history. She now heads to North Carolina. (UNC Athletics)

Courtney Banghart took over as head coach at Princeton in 2007 aged just 29 with only four years as an assistant coach at her alma mater Dartmouth.

She leaves Princeton with 254 career victories and seven Ivy League championships, leading Princeton to its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance and then seven more en route to notching more than 36% of the program’s wins in its 48-year history herself.

North Carolina named Banghart its head coach Tuesday, seeing her as the key to a refreshing program restart after the messy exit of predecessor Sylvia Hatchell, who resigned earlier this month after 33 years at the helm in Chapel Hill, including a national championship in 1994, following an independent investigation finding that she made racially insensitive remarks to her players and pressured some to play through injury.

In its announcement of the Banghart hire, North Carolina Athletics led off by touting Banghart’s leadership credentials.

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James Jones staying at Yale after St. John’s interview

James Jones is staying at Yale after interviewing for a head coaching position at St. John’s that ultimately was offered to and accepted by Mike Anderson. (James Jones’s Twitter page)

James Jones boasts the longest tenure among current Ivy men’s head coaches, and that tenure isn’t done.

There will be a 21st season at Yale’s helm in store for Jones despite him interviewing for the head coaching position at St. John’s that ultimately was offered to and accepted by Mike Anderson, who was fired by Arkansas after nine seasons there last month and was previously a head coach at UAB and Missouri.

Jones was among the final candidates that St. John’s considered after a protracted search that saw Bobby Hurley, Porter Moser and Tim Cluess withdraw their names from consideration.

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