Dartmouth and Yale tip off at John J. Lee Amphitheater Monday for what became an 83-67 win for the latter over the former. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Bez Mbeng was not in the mood for mincing words after setting Yale’s all-time career steals record in an 83-67 win over Dartmouth Monday afternoon.
“I love defense,” Mbeng, who passed former Yale standout Alex Zampier (2006-10) for the record, said.
And as he has for most of the last three seasons for Yale, Mbeng led the way in that department Monday at Lee Amphitheater, harassing Ryan Cornish, Connor Amundsen, or whomever else he was in the neighborhood of, finishing with three steals to go with 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
“It means a lot to me,” Mbeng said. “A lot of credit goes to my teammates and coaches for getting me better and putting me in good positions to get those steals. I’m just really thankful right now.”
Harvard and Brown tip off at the Pizzitola Sports Center Saturday for what became an 80-67 victory for the Crimson over the Bears. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Two weeks ago, Harvard was down double digits to Division III Bowdoin and having trouble getting good looks in the paint.
Saturday afternoon at the Pizzitola Sports Center, the Crimson took it to favored Brown, dominating the interior and seemingly scoring at will – particularly in the second half – on their way to an 80-67 victory that rekindles some hope Harvard might return to Providence in March for its first Ivy League Tournament since 2019.
Princeton and Harvard tip off at Lavietes Pavilion on Jan. 11, 2025 in what became a 68-64 win for the Tigers over the Crimson. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)
BOSTON – There were plenty of mistakes, their shooting was inconsistent, and closing the game out was a mess. But in the end, it was a 68-64 road victory for Princeton over Harvard to open Ivy League play Saturday afternoon.
The Tigers will gladly take it and be on their way.
“The league is so even this year. Even this game, next weekend at Dartmouth, it’s going to be hard. On the margins, that’s where we’ve been really trying to get better,” Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said. “I think it’s kind of going to be whomever is needed on a night that’s going to get us through.”
Pictured Monday is Jadwin Gym, the scene of an instant classic win for Princeton over Akron.(Ray Curren/Ivy Hoops Online)
PRINCETON, N.J. – By now, you’ve probably seen Dalen Davis’ game-winning three-pointer to beat Akron 76-75 on Monday afternoon, completing a remarkable comeback, not for the first time this season for Princeton.
The win over the Zips (7-5) may have been the most impressive comeback, down 11 with seven minutes left, but the Tigers also overcame deficits against Iona, Northeastern, Merrimack, Monmouth and Rutgers.
Impressive fortitude, yes. But is it a sign of a veteran team that will continue to do this for the next few months, or an ominous omen that the preseason Ivy League favorites might be extremely vulnerable this season?
Pictured is Jersey Mike’s Arena, the setting of Columbia’s 91-64 loss to Rutgers Monday. (Ray Curren/Ivy Hoops Online)
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – You won’t ever get a coach to say a season is now or never, but for Jim Engles and Columbia this season, it might be that time.
It’s Engles’ ninth year in charge of the program, and Columbia hasn’t had more than five Ivy League wins in any of the first seven seasons. On a macro level, that’s not an aberration. The Lions haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1968 and before Kyle Smith’s two winning seasons, Columbia hadn’t had a winning record in Ivy play since legendary coach Jack Rohan (who was also in charge in 1968) did it in 1991-92.
Harvard and New Hampshire tip off Sunday for what became a win for the former at the latter. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)
DURHAM, N.H. – As Tommy Amaker watched one of Harvard’s 13 first-half turnovers fly past his head Sunday afternoon, he resisted the urge to admonish the guilty party. Instead, he kept his gaze on the next play, not even acknowledging the mistake.
That’s not to say Amaker wasn’t angry about it. It was as tough for him to watch as anyone. But Amaker knows this might not be a team like the Harvard squads that went to four straight NCAA Tournaments (winning two games) or even one of his 10 teams in an 11-year span earlier in the century that posted double-digit wins in the Ivy League.
Amaker has a young team, a freshman point guard (and three freshman starters Sunday), and patience is key. He wasn’t able to work out all the flaws at halftime, as the Crimson finished with 19 turnovers, but they did enough down the stretch to gut out a 72-62 win over New Hampshire at Lundholm Gym. That’s a step forward for the Crimson after they lost seven of their last eight contests.
Yale and Vermont tip off for what became a 65-50 win for the former over the latter Saturday. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online}
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale broke a two-game losing streak with an impressive second half Saturday afternoon at Lee Amphitheater, allowing exactly half as many points as the last time we saw the Bulldogs at Mohegan Sun two weeks ago in a 65-50 win over Vermont, albeit a struggling and undermanned Catamounts team.
The big personnel news of the day was that Yale’s leading scorer (and 16th nationally) John Poulakidas was not in uniform. The Bulldogs’ offense struggled mightily without him in the first half, scoring just 22 points and turning the ball over 13 times. Sophomore Trevor Mullin got his first career start, but it was Bez Mbeng who had six of those turnovers.
Syracuse’s JMA Wireless Dome is pictured on Nov. 27, 2024. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – You don’t have to squint very hard to see that not much has changed at Cornell this season.
Brian Earl has moved on to William & Mary, and some of the key figures that helped the Big Red to their best record since the magical 2009-10 Sweet 16 campaign have moved on. But Cornell went with the if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it route in hiring Jon Jacques to replace Earl, and the early results have been somewhat encouraging.
The Big Red suffered a somewhat frustrating 82-72 loss at the JMA Wireless Dome (yes, it’s not the Carrier Dome anymore) that saw them jump out to a double-digit lead and battle back on several occasions, but go just 12-for-40 from behind the arc. Cornell has been losing at Syracuse since before the Dome was even built, of course. This was the Big Red’s 44th straight loss to the Orange, dating all the way back to 1968.
The 40 three-point attempts obviously stand out to the uninitiated, but that’s the way Cornell has rolled, having somewhat stumbled upon it during the COVID pandemic (as you probably know, there was no 2020-21 Ivy basketball season). Cornell went from 314th to 15th nationally in adjusted tempo, subbing and shooting transition threes at will. The Big Red have not missed a Ivy League Tournament since.
This season is a big test for Cornell’s tempo-fueled system. Jacques played four years at Cornell, and his senior season was 2009-10. While Jacques’ teams went 45-9 in the Ivy League, Steve Donahue’s style was not about pushing tempo, although those squads were perhaps the most efficient and best shooting Ivy offenses of all time. But Jacques worked closely with Earl the last few seasons, and so here we are.
The transition hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Cornell did have a bad home loss to Robert Morris in which it gave up 1.18 points per possession and 15-for-25 shooting from two-point range. Pressing as much as the Big Red do is going to allow some easy baskets and they did under Earl, but how much is too much?
After missing 14 of its first 15 shots Wednesday night (and falling behind 14-2 and 20-11), Syracuse – not a good shooting team by most standards – continually got to the rim. Even with the dreadful start and average three-point shooting, the Orange still finished at 1.08 points per possession, largely due to the fact that Cornell was only able to force six turnovers. The counter to that, of course, is that there might not be an Ivy League team that can dominate inside at the moment anyway. Yale, maybe?
“I know they had a couple of guys struggling shooting coming in and they were bound to break out,” Jacques said. “They’re too good. They made some hard shots and slowed us down more than we want. We got a little stagnant, we want to push pace. We had a few possessions where we didn’t get the looks we wanted.”
Cornell leads the nation in getting shots up quickly, averaging just 13.8 seconds per possession. It has finished in the top five in that category in every season since COVID and has not finished outside the top 16 in three-pointers taken since then. So those are givens, baked into the formula. The questions are always about gives and takes.
“It’s certainly intentional to take that many threes if that’s what we’re given,” Jacques said. “We have confidence playing that way and we’ve had success. It’s been good to us. When the ball is going in, it looks great. Not quite enough tonight. In the first half, that stretch (an extended 28-8 run) when their lead grew, our offense struggled.”
And the players, of course. Chris Manon (who seemed to do a little of everything), Isaiah Gray, Sean Hansen and Keller Boothby all graduated, but the beauty of Cornell’s system is with so many players getting in games, there is always experience returning.
Nazir Williams has the most experience, now a senior, he managed 16 points Wednesday despite going 1-for-7 from behind the arc. Williams shot 41.1% from three as a sophomore, but is at just 17% early this season. Cornell will need him to shoot better, even if there is a lot more attention on him these days.
A big key in the Cornell system is also having big men who can hoist. The Big Red have two in senior Guy Ragland Jr. and junior AK Okereke. Ragland hit five threes against Syracuse and led the Big Red with 17 points. Ragland has fared much better than Okereke in rebounding numbers this season.
Jake Fiegen and Cooper Noard are the other two starters. They can both shoot, but can they apply the defensive intensity of their predecessors is a question going forward. Cornell’s system is dependent on forcing some turnovers, right now the Big Red are 248th nationally, and if they aren’t getting defensive rebounds (somewhat a given with their style) and not getting turnovers, it makes things very difficult.
“We started playing a zone a little to try to slow them down, but then that slowed us down, too,” Jacques said. “They also picked it apart as well. We couldn’t get any rebounds. I’m proud of the guys for getting it within 4 late in the second half, we almost got it to 2. It’s hard to keep taking punches when you don’t get rebounds.”
Senior Ryan Kiachian, junior DJ Nix, and sophomore Jacob Neccles have gotten the most minutes off the bench, and as we’ve established, Cornell is going to need all of them to be successful.
Despite the coaching change and the departures, the cupboard is certainly not bare for Cornell, who seems to have a good chance to qualify for their fourth straight Ivy League Tournament if it can iron out some minor issues.
Variance hasn’t worked out for them in Ivy Madness the last few seasons, with a pair of semifinal losses to Yale and one to Princeton. But maybe this is the year.
“The league is really good and every team is competitive,” Jacques said. “We’re just trying to inch forward game by game and play a little better every night, Colgate is next. We’re excited for the challenge.”
Pictured is Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. on Nov. 24, 2024. (Ray Curren/Ivy Hoops Online)
UNCASVILLE, Conn. – The day after a lopsided 400th career victory over Fairfield, James Jones saw his Yale team give one of the worst defensive performances in his storied career, leading to a disappointing 100-94 loss to Delaware in front of a sparse crowd at the Hall Of Fame Tip-Off at Mohegan Sun Arena.
There’s room for more years to add to Brown’s Ivy League title banner at the Pizzitola Sports Center. (Ray Curren)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The brown banner at the Pizzitola Sports Center sits ominously among a slew of white ones and reads “Men’s Basketball Ivy League Champions.”
Below that sits a lone number: 1986 — with plenty of space for a companion or two.
It almost read 2024, of course. We don’t have to rehash what happened last March in New York on this site, but Brown had earned its first NCAA Tournament in 38 years by upsetting Yale and Princeton. Until it hadn’t.
