You can’t spot a power conference team a 22-7 lead on the road before 7,042 screaming fans and expect a good outcome. Yale didn’t get one Tuesday night at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, where Butler defeated Yale, 71-61.
Yale (8-2) did fight back and cut the Butler lead to eight at the 3:24 mark of the second half. But sharpshooter Simas Lukosius hit two dagger threes in the last minute to preserve the victory for Butler (7-3).
“It was a hard-fought game. Our guys didn’t go away,” coach James Jones said. “Those first 10 minutes we did a poor job of taking care of the ball.”
Returning over 96% of the team’s points, rebounds and minutes from last year’s WNIT quarterfinal team, expectations are high for the Columbia women this season. The Lions took their initial step toward the program’s first ever NCAA Tournament bid with a 77-69 victory over Memphis at the Elma Roane Fieldhouse on Monday night.
The game was knotted at seven halfway through the opening frame, but the Tigers finished the quarter on a 11-2 run. Down eight with just over a minute to go, the Lions returned the favor and ended the half on 8-2 run to cut the deficit to two. Memphis extended the lead to four, 54-50, after three quarters.
But the game would quickly turn in Columbia’s favor.
Camilla Emsbo averaged 13.3 points and 8.7 rebounds in 82 games as a Yale Bulldog. (Camilla Emsbo’s Twitter page)
Yale’s Camilla Emsbo was scheduled to play for Team USA at the Maccabi Games in Israel this summer, but the 6’5″ forward did not ultimately join the team. Several weeks later, the Next Hoops’ Jenn Hatfield tweeted that “a source familiar with the situation” told her that Emsbo entered the transfer portal for 2023-24. With only one year of eligibility remining, it appeared that the two-time All-Ivy player was done playing for the Elis, but she remained on Yale’s 2022-23 roster and the school would not discuss her status for this season.
The school announced that Embso has an undisclosed injury and will be out for the year Tuesday morning, a few hours before the Ivy League’s Media Day. Despite not playing on the court, the senior captain will remain with the team in a supporting role. The injury ends Emsbo’s Yale playing career.
Conference realignments, eye-popping TV deals and compensation for college athletes’ name, image and likeness have upended the college sports landscape. What is Ivy hoops’ place in all the hoopla? How should the Ivy League and its member schools raise the profile of its basketball programs? With Ivy student support waning and NIL on the rise, what moves would improve Ivy hoops? Our writers consider these looming questions below:
Pete Carril, the Ivy League’s all-time winningest men’s basketball coach after 29 years leading Princeton, died Monday at 92. (Princeton Athletics)
The Princeton basketball community lost a father figure Monday with the death of its legendary coach, Pete Carril.
It is difficult to express in a short essay the importance of Pete Carril to followers of Princeton basketball or to the game of basketball itself. Most of the epitaphs I digested in the immediate aftermath of the news of Carril’s passing emphasized his coaching record – 514 wins, which remains an all-time record among Ivy League coaches – and his signature style of coaching, including his frumpy demeanor, and of course his perfection of the Princeton offense, which became stylish after Princeton defeated UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament.
Pete Carril, all-time winningest coach in Ivy men’s basketball history, died Monday at 92. (Princeton Athletics)
Legendary former Princeton men’s basketball coach Pete Carril, arguably the face of Ivy League basketball for all time, has died.
Carril died at 92 Monday morning, Princeton Athletics announced in a statement from his family.
“The Carril family is sad to report that Coach Peter J. Carril passed away peacefully this morning, the statement read. “We kindly ask that you please respect our privacy at this time as we process our loss and handle necessary arrangements. More information will be forthcoming in the following days.”
In his 29 years leading Princeton, Carril cemented his place as one of the most impactful innovators in the history of the sport. From 1967 to 1996, Carril’s Tigers won 514 games and 13 Ivy League titles by playing his way – smart, selective and disciplined.
Carril will forever be linked to the ‘Princeton offense,’ an offensive strategy that neutralized faster, more athletic and less versatile opponents by slowing games down through prolific passing to patiently set up high-percentage shots through screens and cuts.
Decades before it was en vogue, Carril emphasized ball-handling and perimeter shooting from all five players on the floor to complement his stingy defenses.
“Pete Carril’s fingerprints are all over the game of basketball, and will remain so for generations to come,” Craig Robinson, Carril’s former two-time Ivy Player of the Year standout and executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, said in a statement. “His signature offensive style became the defining characteristic of the Princeton program, and his philosophies continue to influence how offensive systems are developed to this day.”
All of Carril’s successors have either coached or played under him.
But while many coaches have tried to replicate and build upon his offensive patterns, no one could ever hope to duplicate his consummately curmudgeonly image.
The vertically challenged Carril was a memorable presence on the sideline, usually wearing a rumpled sweater and letting referees know where he stood in more ways than one.
“I was tough to referee a game for,” Carril acknowledged in his 1997 book ‘The Smart from the Strong: The Basketball Philosophy of Pete Carril.’ ” … I’ve seen about half a dozen good refs.”
Carril held himself to a similarly high standard.
“It is important to do things right and it is equally important to be good at what you are doing,” Carril wrote in his book.
Every generation and corner of the college basketball world – from Old Nassau to 33rd Street – agreed after Carril’s death Monday that he was among the very best at what he did.
“Your impact on basketball on basketball is evident every time someone steps on the floor, but your impact in my life is bigger than you probably ever knew,” 2020 Princeton basketball alumnus Devin Cannady said of Carril in a Twitter post.
“Pete was the ultimate competitor and warrior, and his teams were always the most difficult to play against,” Bob Weinhauer, coach of Princeton’s archrival Penn, said in a statement released by Penn Athletics. “We had such a great rivalry, and I hope he knew that everyone at Penn had the utmost respect for his teams.”
Carril retired as Princeton head coach in 1996, moving on to become an assistant for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, where he was known as “Coachie.”
“During his time in Sacramento, Coachie left an indelible imprint on the Kings organization and the many players who benefited from his tutelage,” the Kings said in a Twitter post. “Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones in during this difficult time.”
“RIP to a man who changed basketball, and who changed the lives of so many — including mine — for the better,” 1998 Princeton basketball alumnus and Time magazine senior sports correspondent Sean Gregory wrote on Twitter. “Thanks Coach.”
Bruce Lefkowitz, a 1987 Penn basketball alumnus and standout, called competing against Carril “an honor” on Twitter.
“He was a true legend of the game,” Lefkowitz wrote. “Nothing was more grueling than ‘Princeton Week’ when [we] had to defend the Princeton offense for the whole practice.”
More than a quarter-century after his coaching run at Princeton ended, Carril is still the all-time winningest coach in Ivy men’s basketball history.
Many defining moments in Ivy hoops history happened on Carril’s watch. Princeton’s 43-41 upset win over defending national champion UCLA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and Princeton’s near-upset of No. 1 Georgetown as a No. 16 seed in 1989, memorably characterized by Gregory and fellow Princeton graduate Alexander Wolff as the game that saved March Madness – are the two most well-known moments.
That was the smart taking from the strong on the game’s biggest stage.
IHO writer Palestra Pete recalled a friend who played for Penn in the 1970s telling him that one time when the team was getting ready to play Princeton, then-Penn coach Chuck Daly told the players the things they would have to do particularly well that game, “because we know we’ll be outcoached.”
“In this life, the big, strong guys are always taking from the smaller, weaker guys … but the smart take from the strong,” Carril recalled his father, a Spanish immigrant who worked 39 years for the Bethlehem Steel Company, telling him and his sister. ” … An athlete who is fundamentally sound and plays intelligently and hard will generally come out on top.”
Before commencing with the rest of the Ivy hoops roundup, a note of sorrow about the passing of James “Booney” Salters, the 1980 Penn grad whose dynamic scoring and passing made him one of the best guards in men’s program history.
Salters died July 7. He was 64.
Penn made the NCAA Tournament in all three of Salters’ three seasons with the Red & Blue. The Penn Athletics and Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Famer captained the often overlooked 1979-80 Penn team that advanced to the second round of the Big Dance, leading the squad in scoring and sinking the game-winning shot to triumph over Princeton, 50-49, in an Ivy League playoff matchup.
Our latest Ivy hoops roundup features critical hires amid new starts for Harvard and Yale women’s basketball, an especially promising recruiting class for the Princeton women, some big men’s graduate transfer losses and more:
Princeton women introduce No. 19 class of recruits
Princeton women’s basketball announced what ESPN.com deemed the No. 19 recruiting class in the nation:
The recently named 2022-23 Yale basketball captain is junior Michael Feinberg, a native of Hidden Hills, Calif.
Feinberg played for three seasons for Sierra Canyon High School, a national powerhouse. In his junior season, he played on a team with Marvin Bagley III, a former Duke player who is now with the Detroit Pistons, Cody Riley who played at UCLA and Remy Martin who had a great career at Kansas. Feinberg spent his senior season at Viewpoint School.
Devin Cannady is nearing the end of a 10-day contract with the Orlando Magic that has marked an extraordinary comeback from a devastating injury for the former Princeton standout.
Cannady signed the contract March 31, making the jump from the Lakeland Magic of the NBA G League, where he had been averaging 15.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 16 games and 11 starts.
