Home of the Roundball Poets
It’s been an awfully busy offseason for transfers throughout the Ivy League. Shonn Miller is off to Storrs. Rafael Maia is pining for Pittsburgh, Alex Mitola is set for D.C. and Denton Koon is headed to Hempstead.
But which Ivy transfer is going to have the biggest impact on their team in 2015-16?
As Alex Kline (@TheRecruitScoop) reported today, Dartmouth junior guard transfer Alex Mitola has transferred to George Washington, where he is instantly eligible.
Mitola, who was also in the mix at Temple, La Salle, Vanderbilt and several other schools, announced his decision to transfer earlier this month, and visited GW Monday and Tuesday. Mitola should fit like a glove at GW, which struggled shooting the ball last season benefit immediately from Mitola”s range as a shooter, as Mitola finished second in the Ivy League in three-pointers made in his final season with the Big Green and has stretched opposing defenses throughout his career.
According to several sources, including his high school coach, Dartmouth junior guard Alex Mitola will become a graduate transfer and play his final season at another school.
“Alex always wanted to see if he could play up at a little bit of a higher level,” Gill St. Bernard’s coach Mergin Sina told Jerry Carino. “Out of high school he didn’t have a chance to do it.”
The news represents a huge loss for Big Green coach Paul Cormier and the Dartmouth basketball program. Mitola averaged 12.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, good for seventh in scoring, first in free-throw percentage, 10th in assists, second in three-pointers made, second in assist/turnover ratio and second in minutes played.
“I’m disappointed and think he’s making a terrible mistake,” Paul Cormier said to the Valley News of Mitola. “He can’t get that (fourth year at Dartmouth) back. The decision that requires the most substance is staying here and following through with the teammates you came in with.”
The Valley News also reports that Mitola plans to play his final season of college eligibility with a higher-profile program and pursue a graduate business degree before playing professionally overseas.
“We’ve gone from nine victories to 12 to 14 since Alex has been here,” Cormier told the Valley News. “He could have left a real legacy. I hope this isn’t something he later regrets, because it’s not ending the way I think it should.”
“It was hard because I know the situation it puts them in, but I felt it was what was best for me and my career moving forwards,” Mitola said.
The Ivy League will miss Mitola’s potent long-range shooting, superior ballhandling and clutch play. Dartmouth would not have made its first postseason since 1959 this season without him. I discussed what I thought Mitola’s versatility meant to Dartmouth in an On the Vine in February, and One Bid Wonders correctly identified him as the “culture changer” in Hanover earlier this season.
2015 Outgoing Ivy Transfers
Denton Koon
Shonn Miller
Kenyatta Smith
Rafael Maia
Cam Crocker
Galal Cancer
Alex Mitola
The Dartmouth basketball team on Tuesday raised a banner at Leede Arena to honor its CIT berth this season, the program’s first postseason appearance since 1959.
The banner read, “Fourth Place”.
Dartmouth then raised a 2014-15 Ivy League championship banner honoring Harvard next to the fourth-place banner.
“We made this happen,” Dartmouth forward Gabas Maldunas said.
Maldunas then told reporters a banner honoring him would be raised at Lavietes Pavilion next week. Maldunas said the banner will hang next to Harvard’s own 2014-15 Ivy championship banner and read, “Thank you, Gabas.”
“You’re welcome,” Maldunas told reporters about the scoop, which was later confirmed by Harvard athletic director Bob Scalise.
Yale had its first NCAA tournament berth in 53 years in its grasp.
And then it slipped away.
Leading 57-52 with 24.1 seconds left and having trailed for just 43 seconds of the entire game up to that point, the Bulldogs collapsed. Freshman guard Miles Wright hit two free throws for Dartmouth and added a three-pointer that tied the game. A 1-for-2 trip to the charity stripe for Yale senior guard Javier Duren gave the Elis a 58-57 edge with 2.3 seconds left, and Dartmouth had to go the length of the court in that span.
But the Dartmouth cross-court pass was batted out by Yale junior forward Justin Sears, who inexplicably and purposefully batted the ball out of bounds, hoping to take more time off the clock. As a result, the Big Green got the ball under Yale’s basket, where senior forward Gabas Maldunas used a screen from junior guard Alex Mitola to get free for the game-winning layup, clinching Dartmouth’s first postseason appearance since 1959.
It’s hard to remember that Dartmouth exists sometimes, so consider this roster preview a reminder that the Big Green are still around. But who are they this year exactly?
Coach Paul Cormier alluded to the fact that this is a more experienced team than he has helmed in the past, and yet there are just two seniors on the entire roster. The presence of seven juniors makes up for that, though, namely co-captain Alex Mitola, who vastly improved his assist to turnover ratio as a sophomore and established himself as one of the most dangerous three-point shooters in the league. What’s most impressive is that Mitola kept improving in Ivy play even after 2012-13 All-Ivy second-teamer and fellow co-captain Gabas Maldunas tore his ACL shortly after Dartmouth entered its conference slate. And of course, Maldunas himself can be quite the beast, averaging 11.2 points and 8.5 boards per contest before his injury, which Cormier said at the teleconference had been just cleared for contact.