Rob Browne

Dartmouth women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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Seventh-year head coach Belle Koclanes announced the upcoming schedule for the Dartmouth women’s team on Tuesday.  Preparing to earn its first-ever appearance in the Ivy Tournament, the team’s 13-game nonconference slate is heavy on regional opponents, but light on teams from last year’s postseason.

The Big Green will take on fellow New Englanders Vermont, Merrimack, Fairfield, Maine, UMass-Lowell, New Hampshire and Boston University.  While most are familiar foes, this year’s contest with Merrimack will be a first, as the Warriors make the jump to Division I.

Dartmouth will visit Loyola (Chicago) and Northwestern in early December, as a homecoming trip for senior guard Annie McKenna of nearby Elmwood Park.  The Wildcats, coming off a successful season that ended as runner-up in the 2019 WNIT, are one of three non-Ivy teams that played in the postseason.  The other two are MAC champion Buffalo and America East title-holder Maine, both making it into the NCAA Tournament.

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Penn women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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2019 Ivy League regular season co-champion Penn released its full schedule on Friday, revealing a 13-game nonconference schedule that is highlighted by games against Philly’s City 6 and holiday visits to Tobacco Road and Honolulu.

The Quakers, which went 4-1 overall against its neighbors and just missed out on winning back-to-back Big Five championships last season, will again face Drexel, La Salle, St. Joseph’s, Temple and Villanova.  The Red & Blue, which played four of those games at the Palestra last season, will have to play four of five on the road in 2019-20.

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Princeton women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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The two-time defending regular and postseason Ivy champion Princeton women’s team has announced its 2019-20 schedule, which features a non-conference schedule with two trips to the midwest and six games against teams that made the postseason in 2019.

In November, the Tigers will travel to the state of Iowa, the home of junior Carlie Littlefield, to take on Iowa State and Iowa.  A month later, they will visit the Show-Me State to face Missouri and St. Louis for Gateway City native and senior co-captain Taylor Baur.

Over the course of the pre-Ivy schedule, the Orange & Black will face Rider, Seton Hall, and Hartford from last year’s WNIT, as well as NCAA qualifiers Iowa, Iowa State and Missouri.  The Tigers will also welcome Penn State to Jadwin Gymnasium, looking to avenge last year’s 79-71 overtime defeat.

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Harvard women’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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The dean of Ivy coaches, Kathy Delaney-Smith, announced the 2019-20 schedule for the Harvard women on Wednesday.  The season, her 38th at Harvard, includes 13 nonconference games with five matchups against teams that made the postseason in 2019.

Four of these teams, California, Quinnipiac, Rutgers, and Maine, made it to March Madness, while Hartford earned a spot in the WNIT.

Following the Nov. 5 season opener at Northern Illinois, the Crimson will welcome Cal to Lavietes Pavilion on the 8th.  The Golden Bears, previously coached by former Brown guard and present Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Lindsay Gottlieb, will look for revenge after Harvard upset the then-No. 14 team, 85-79, last December.

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Harvard men’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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The Harvard men announced a challenging 2019-2020 schedule, on Tuesday afternoon, which the Crimson faithful hope will prepare the team not only for its third straight regular season title, but its first Ivy Tournament championship and first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015.

The 15 game nonconference schedule features the usual contests against in-state rivals, as well as trips to Toronto, Florida, D.C. and California.  The early part of the schedule will see the Crimson facing anywhere from four-to-five top-100 teams.

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Ivy hoops roundup – July 25, 2019

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  • The Dartmouth men have completed its staff for the 2019-2020 season with the hiring of Steve Ongley as an assistant coach.  Ongley spent last year on Jim Engles’ staff at Columbia, where he worked with the front court players.  Prior to that, he was an assistant for four years at Colby College, the alma mater of Big Green head coach Dave McLaughlin.
    Ongley replaces John Andrzejek, a Columbia graduate and one-time Lions student manager who joined former boss Kyle Smith’s staff at Washington State.  There has been no announcement from Columbia for its replacement of Ongley.
  • Princeton women’s coach Carla Berube finished the hiring of her new staff, with the announcement of Helen Tau as director of basketball operations.  Tau, a 2014 graduate of the University of Texas who was a walk-on in her senior year, spent 2014-2016 as a graduate assistant for the Longhorns and then worked for Georgetown as director of video operations the last two seasons.
    Tau replaces Jessica Imhof, who went to the University of North Carolina to join former Tigers coach Courtney Banghart.

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Ivy hoops roundup – July 17, 2019

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  • Ben Baskin of Sports Illustrated published a longform article Thursday on former Penn head coach Jerome Allen and his part in a recruitment scandal that saw the Ivy great accept money from a parent to place an unqualified student-athlete onto the school’s recruited athlete list.  The author wrote his article, which is available online and in the print edition, “with the aid of court transcripts and exhibits, financial records, news reports and interviews with three dozen of his friends, classmates, teachers, coaches, players, mentors and coworkers, many speaking anonymously for fear of personal and professional ramifications.”
    The article provided the following new information: During his playing career, Allen faced a series of civil suits over unpaid debts—$5,000 owed to a car-leasing company, $13,000 to a bank, $6,700 to a landlord.
    – While Allen was coaching Penn, the school sued him for nearly $25,000 for failing to pay off two decades of accrued interest on a loan he had taken out as a student

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Yale men’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

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Yale Athletics announced an intriguing 2019-2020 schedule for the defending Ivy League regular season co-champion and Ivy Tournament title winning Bulldogs Friday.

The 16 game nonconference schedule, which features 14 Division I matchups, includes contests against power conference foes North Carolina, Penn State, Oklahoma State and Clemson.

The Elis will open the season on the road at Stony Brook on November 5, a homecoming for the team’s Long Island born-and-raised coach.  On November 8, they will raise the Ivy banners at the Lee Amphitheater against Division III Oberlin, which is coached by former Yale player Isaiah Cavaco.

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Former Penn captain Dau Jok deploys to Iraq

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Dau Jok spoke at the Penn School of Arts & Sciences Commencement in 2014, one of many honors that Jok has earned through his educational programming and advocacy. (Penn Hillel)

WHO TV in Des Moines, Iowa reported earlier this week that Dau Jok, a member of Penn basketball from 2010 to 2014, departed Monday for Iraq as a member of the United States Army Reserve’s 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command.  According to the station, Jok and his unit will be in Iraq for at least a year.

Jok, along with his younger brother Peter were born in Khartoum, Sudan.  When Dau was six and Peter three, their father Dut, a general in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, was killed during the Second Sudanese Civil War.  Their grandfather Jok Dau Kachuol, the chief of their village, would be killed in 2010, during a clash between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army soldiers and armed civilians.

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Ivy hoops roundup – July 9, 2019

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Even with last week’s big news (and news, and news) around former Penn men’s head coach Jerome Allen and the probable extension for current Brown men’s head coach Mike Martin, the Ancient Eight continues its many off-season story lines.

  • Carla Berube has picked three staff members at Princeton, hiring Lauren Battista, Dalia Eshe and Lauren Dillon as assistant coaches. Two previously coached under her at Tufts.
    Battista has previous experience as an assistant at Tufts for the 2018-2019 season, where she worked with Berube, as well as three years as a graduate assistant at Boston College.  She played four years a Bentley College and was named the national Division II Player of the Year in her 2013-2014 senior year.
    Eshe has been as assistant coach at La Salle from 2016-2019 and East Carolina from 2014-2016.  Prior to that, she spent the 2013-2014 season as Director of Basketball Operations for Loyola, Maryland.  Before entering the coaching ranks, the 2006 Florida graduate and committed vegan, was drafted by the Seattle Storm in the second round of the WNBA Draft.  She was in the training camps for Seattle, Washington and Atlanta in the WNBA,  but played professionally in Turkey, Russia, Romania, Czech Republic, Portugal, Germany and Ecuador between 2006 and 2013.
    Dillon was an assistant under Berube last year at Tufts, where Dillon played the previous four years before graduating in 2018. Dillon was a two-year captain, NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore and earned a First-Team All-League selection as a senior.
    The previous Princeton staff consisted of Carrie Moore, Addie Micir and Cinnamon Lister. Moore went to North Carolina with former Tigers coach Courtney Banghart, Micir became the associate head coach for Lehigh and Lister moved to UC Irvine.

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