In a physical battle that featured 17 lead changes and 15 ties over 45 minutes, Brown men’s basketball opened up its largest lead of the game in the extra session and held on for an 86-80 victory over Columbia at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.
Mike Martin’s Bears (7-8, 1-2 Ivy League) picked up their first conference win in three tries, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions (12-5, 1-2) dropped their second straight Ancient Eight contest.
“Really, really pleased,” Martin told the ESPN+/NESN broadcast team after the game. “That was a hard, hard-fought game. They’re (Columbia) a heck of a team.”
The Penn women’s basketball visit to Brown didn’t figure on being easy for either team. After all, they spent the past two seasons clawing at each other for the fourth slot in the Ivy League Tournament, with Penn claiming the honor both times.
What they produced Saturday was a classic, a double-overtime win for the Bears that looked easy at the start and easy at the finish but was brilliant and exhausting basketball in between. If this is the sort of thing we can expect for the rest of the season, we’ll have a lot of exciting games to watch, and both Brown and Penn will go to the tournament in March.
Penn avoided the dreaded 0-2 start to Ivy play thanks to a pair of sterling performances from its senior leaders.
Wings Ethan Roberts and Michael Zanoni scored 28 and 20, respectively, in an 81-73 win over Brown at the Palestra. No other Quakers player scored more than nine. The win had the added benefit of snapping a four-game losing streak to the Bears (6-9, 0-2 Ivy).
Penn (8-7, 1-1) scored an efficient 1.2 points per possession against a good defensive team. The Quakers badly needed it, given their own defensive struggles. The Red and Blue managed to get to the halftime locker room tied despite an awful start, then seized control of the game with a 13-6 run out of the break.
Zanoni gave Penn a lead it would not surrender with an open three by the right sideline off a nice feed out of the lane by Roberts 50 seconds into the second half. Roberts later capped off the run with a wide-open three from the left wing thanks to a good screen from big man Augustus Gerhart with 16:17 to go in the half.
The release of the Ivy League preseason media poll and 2025-26 Media Day revealed Princeton as the favorite heading into the 2025-26 season, followed by three-time defending champion Columbia, 2025 Ivy Madness title-holder Harvard in third and Penn rounding out the upper half of the conference.
Brown, which has tied the Quakers for fourth place the last two years, is the clear choice for the fifth slot. Dartmouth, Cornell and Yale are pegged for the last three spots, with the Big Green one point ahead of the Big Red and seven points in front of the Bulldogs.
The 2025-26 Ivy women’s basketball season tips off Friday, so it’s time for Ivy Hoops Online’s preseason poll – not to be confused with the Ivy League-released media preseason poll. Here’s how our contributors collectively predict the league will shake out, with select observations from some of them:
Brown men’s basketball has not danced since 1986, but head coach Mike Martin is like a kid in a candy store when he talks about that goal. With year 14 fast approaching for Martin, it’s the furious pursuit of March magic that keeps his feet planted in Providence.
“The administration here, president [Christina] Paxson and [vice president for athletics and recreation] Grace Calhoun have been incredibly supportive in trying to help grow our program,” Martin told Ivy Hoops Online. “This is the job I’ve always wanted.”
A memorial to Washington Post reporter John Feinstein, who unexpectedly passed away on March 13, was stationed in the Ivy Tournament Media Room (photo: Rob Browne for Ivy Hoops Online)
PROVIDENCE, R.I.- Day two at Ivy Madness started in the mid-morning with the four participants on the men’s side of the ledger.
In a very nice gesture, the Ivy League memorialized a seat for Washington Post sportswriter John Feinstein, who unexpectedly passed away at 68 Thursday. Despite attending Duke, John was a big fan of Ivy League sports, attending several Ivy League tournaments and writing about the conference’s gridiron in this past November’s “The Ancient Eight: College Football’s Ivy League and the Game They Play Today.”
Yale arrives as the regular season champion and heavy favorite to the be the first No. 1 seed to win the conference tournament since Princeton did it in 2017.
While this is the fifth time at Ivy Madness for No. 2 Cornell, it is the first time the Big Red enter as a semifinal favorite and are being led by former player and longtime assistant Jon Jaques.
Speaking of first timers, Dave McLaughlin and Dartmouth are making their inaugural appearance at the Ivy League’s Big Dance. The Big Green are looking to emulate Brown, which upset higher-seeded Princeton last year in its debut tournament last year.
Dartmouth was picked eighth in the preseason media poll and ended up third. On the other hand, the Tigers were picked to repeat as regular-season champions but ended up fourth. They clinched their seventh top-four finish in the tournament era on the final day of the season.
As the top seed, Yale opted to hang out for an extra hour and gave the opening slot to Princeton. After the Bulldogs’ press conference, Cornell and Dartmouth followed in the traditional No. 2 and No. 3-seed slots.
Below are highlights from the four media sessions:
The Ivy League announced its major men’s awards Wednesday. But we know this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Ivy Hoops Online’s 2024-25 All-Ivy Awards, as determined by IHO’s contributors:
The Ivy League announced its major women’s awards Tuesday, but we know this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Ivy Hoops Online’s 2024-25 All-Ivy Awards, as determined by IHO’s contributors prior to the release of the Ivy League’s awards:
