Mike Tony

Making sense of Tony Hicks' departure from Penn basketball

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Tony Hicks was a two-time All-Ivy honorable mention and reached the 1,000-point plateau in February. (USA Today Images)
Tony Hicks was a two-time All-Ivy honorable mention and reached the 1,000-point plateau in February. (USA Today Images)

Tony Hicks has walked away from a most interesting scene, just when we thought he’d be front and center.

Unfortunately, what made the scene so interesting in theory is probably what kept it from ever becoming a reality.

The senior guard has left the program, according to a Friday afternoon press release from Penn Athletics:

“After speaking with Coach (Steve) Donahue about the best situation for Penn basketball and myself, I have decided the best decision for me will be to take a break from basketball,” Hicks said in the release. “I plan to graduate from Penn in May, and then take my next step as a basketball player next year.

“This is a personal decision, and I wrestled long and hard with it because I have thoroughly enjoyed playing for Penn the last three years and wearing the Red and the Blue. I want to wish the guys on the team and the coaches all the best for this season and future seasons, and I will definitely be backing them in The Palestra during these next several months.”

Hicks leaves a lot on the table. He was named a captain for the 2015-16 season, was the leading scorer for the Quakers for the past two seasons and figured to be the greatest beneficiary of an offensive system under coach Steve Donahue that values efficiency through careful shot selection (i.e., shoot under the hoop or behind the three-point line).

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Ivy League KenPom rankings released

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Celebrated weather expert Ken Pomeroy has come out with his 2016 College Basketball Ratings, and he is riding the Princeton bandwagon, reinforcing the idea that the smart money is on Princeton to win the 2015-16 Ivy championship. KenPom’s numbers reflect the notion that Yale’s comparatively weak adjusted offensive efficiency and Columbia’s comparatively weak adjusted defensive efficiency will respectively hold them back from trumping the Tigers this season.

81 – Princeton
115 – Yale
126 – Columbia
169 – Harvard
224 – Penn
229 – Dartmouth
243 – Brown
311 – Cornell

And the final 2015 KenPom College Basketball Ratings:

70 – Yale
73 – Harvard
148 – Princeton
165 – Dartmouth
175 – Columbia
205 – Cornell
261 – Brown
289 – Penn

Ivy Preseason Media Poll puts Yale at top of league

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Today’s release of the Ivy Preseason Media Poll yielded a predictably unpredictable outlook for the 2015-16 14-game tournament.

Yale was selected to finish first in the poll, garnering 117 points and five first-place votes. But by no means is there an Eli-favoring consensus here. Columbia and Princeton, finishing second and third in the poll respectively, each actually finished with more first-place votes (six) than Yale.

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Justin Sears gets Slam spotlight, but not CBS Sports kudos

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Yale Athletics
(Yale Athletics)

Yes, Justin Sears remembers how Yale’s season ended last year.

According to an insightful new article from Slam Magazine, Sears found a box of t-shirts in the locker room with “2014-15 Ivy League Champs” emblazoned on them, including the message, “We’re in.”

This message would be great if it weren’t for the fact that Harvard beat Yale in the Ivy League playoff last season, thus swiping a NCAA Tournament berth away from the Bulldogs in dramatic fashion.

But Sears took one of the shirts and put it in his room as a reminder of what he has to work toward as a senior. Motivation indeed.

And oh yeah, did I mention Sears is reigning Ivy Player of the Year? Because Sears, casino online players in college hoops for 2014-15″ href=”http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24773610/cbssportscoms-top-100-players-in-college-hoops-for-2014-15″ target=”_blank”>for the second year in a row, was left completely off the CBS Sports list of the top 100 basketball players.

Yale (No. 80) was also placed behind Columbia (No. 72) in CBS Sports’ ranking of all 351 teams in college basketball, despite Sears’ return.

If sports is about redemption, Yale is your team to root for this season.

Congrats to Penn football for beating No. 5 Villanova for the first time since 1911

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Here’s a sentence most Penn football fans thought would never hold true: The Quakers beat Villanova at Villanova Stadium Thursday night, 24-13. It was Penn’s first win over the Wildcats since Oct. 14, 1911 and snaps a 14-game win streak in the series for Villanova, the fifth-ranked team in the FCS.

Pope Francis may be visiting Philly this weekend, but the first win under new Penn head coach Ray Priore was no Hail Mary. In the first half, Penn outgained the Villanova in yards, 219-29, and controlled the time of possession battle, 24:25-5:35.

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Dartmouth all-time moment No. 1: The 1957-58 NCAA Tournament run

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Of course, Dartmouth’s top 10 countdown ends at this post’s conclusion because nothing gold can stay.

The 1957-58 Dartmouth squad is quite simply one of the best teams in the past 60 years of Ivy hoops.

The team finished 22-5 for an 81.5 winning percentage, eighth-best in the country. Two of those wins were NCAA tourney wins.

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Dartmouth all-time moment No. 2: Securing 1959 NCAA Tournament berth

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Dartmouth is next because Rudy LaRusso once had a cameo in an episode of Gilligan’s Island. 

A season after winning the Ivy League championship and winning two games in the NCAA Tournament, Dartmouth vied with Princeton for the 1959 Ivy crown. The teams split their meeting that season, the only loss either squad suffered.

So on March 7, 1959, the Indians (before they were the Big Green) and Tigers matched up in a one-game playoff at Yale to determine who would represent the conference in the NCAA tourney.

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Dartmouth all-time moment No. 3: Beating Yale to win CIT bid

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Dartmouth is next because Gabas Maldunas delivers.

Our No. 3 all-time Dartmouth moment just so happens to be the same as the No. 8 all-time Harvard moment.

Dartmouth went into its regular season finale on March 7, 2015 needing to defeat Yale to finish 14-14 and thus qualify for the College Invitational Tournament (CIT), for what would mark the program’s first postseason appearance since 1959.

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Dartmouth all-time moment No. 4: Jim Barton graduates as Ivy second-highest scoring leader

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Dartmouth is next because Rachel Dratch, Buck Henry and Mindy Kaling all went there. Comedy cred for all time right there. 

Continuing on from our previous Dartmouth all-time moment, another Jim Barton-focused item, we turn to Barton’s place as the second-greatest scorer in Ivy League history.

Barton graduated after four seasons in 1989 having scored 2,158 points, second only to Bill Bradley (who scored 2,503 in just three seasons). Barton’s career clip of 20.7 points per game ranks second in school history (behind Paul Erland ’72) and ninth in league history, a clip that not a single player in the conference has matched since then.

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Dartmouth all-time moment No. 5: Jim Barton posts 48 points at Brown in 1987

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Dartmouth is next because we’re keeping it kosher. 

There’ll be another post forthcoming on Jim Barton’s scoring exploits, but suffice it to say for now that he was a great scorer.

That talent was on full display Feb. 7, 1987 when Barton, then just a sophomore, notched 48 points on 18-for-29 shooting in a 98-96 overtime loss to the then-defending Ivy champion Bears.

Barton’s 48 points set a modern Ivy League single-game scoring record among players not named Bill Bradley that still stands. Again, more on Barton still to come in this countdown, but a scoring performance like this one simply could not be ignored.