General

Princeton men need to tighten up defense after falling short versus Yale

by

Preseason Ivy favorite Yale returned to one of its comfortable road venues, Jadwin Gym, to upset the Tigers, 80-74. The Tigers have shown a propensity to dig themselves into early holes. This time the hole was too deep, the Eli sharpshooters too deadly. Yale’s 17-point lead at the half, boosted by the Tigers’ surrendering an inexcusable 1-on-2 layup after holding for the last shot, proved to be insurmountable.

In the second half, the Tigers played much closer to their preferred game, making nine of 12 from deep to get back into contention, at one point closing within two. Even when Azar Swain and Jalen Gabbidon were rested in the middle of the second half, the Tigers failed to take advantage. Yale actually added to its lead.

Jaelin Llewellyn dismissed injury concerns to fuel the Tigers’ comeback effort, canning six of 12 shots from deep and scoring 23 points. Ethan Wright and Drew Friberg went a combined 3-for-14 from beyond the arc, with most of those misses coming in the first half.

The second half shows that Princeton can certainly play with Yale but must defend better. This game demonstrates why Yale was favored to win the Ivy crown this season. Since the Tigers will spend much of February on the road, they need to find three wins to ensure their berth in Ivy Madness.

 

Rai, Adelekun and Barry lead Dartmouth men to 76-63 win at Columbia

by
Ivy League minutes leader Brendan Barry registered 13 points on 6-for-12 shooting in 36 minutes in Dartmouth’s win at Columbia Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Clinging to a slim two-point lead over Columbia with just over two minutes left in the first half, Dartmouth’s trio of Aaryn Rai, Brendan Barry and Dame Adelekun took over and scored 43 of the Big Green’s final 47 points to lead the way to a 76-63 victory at Levien Gymnasium on a snowy Saturday in New York City.

Read more

Penn men survive early knockdown to take round one at Harvard, 78-74

by
Penn sophomore guard Jordan Dingle rang up 31 points on 9-for-16 shooting in a win at Harvard Friday, becoming the first player in program history with back-to-back games scoring 30 points or more in Ivy play. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Down 12-2, starting power forward Michael Moshkovitz off the court with two quick fouls and a boisterous sellout Lavietes Pavilion crowd on top of them, things looked bleak for the Penn men as they made it to their bench for the first media timeout in Friday night’s nationally televised game at Harvard.

Fortunately, Steve Donahue settled his team and the Quakers bounced back for an important 78-74 road victory that has the Red & Blue at 5-2 (8-12 overall) halfway through the Ivy League schedule.

Tommy Amaker’s Crimson, meanwhile, left the court with their third loss in five league contests (10-7 overall).

Read more

Three takeaways from the Penn men’s win over Yale

by
Yale senior guard Azar Swain didn’t see many of his shots fall at Penn Saturday, going 3-for-13 from the field in the Bulldogs’ 76-68 loss. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Ninety-five years after Penn opened up the Palestra with a win over Yale, this edition of the Red & Blue sought another reset Saturday against the team pegged to win the Ivy title in the conference preseason media poll.

Read more

Columbia women outlast Cornell, 57-46, for best start to Ivy play in program history

by

After running out to a 24-point lead over the first 7:30 of the game, the Columbia women surprisingly found themselves in a battle with Cornell on Thursday night.  In a typically intense physical battle between the Empire State rivals, the Lions used the offense of Kitty Henderson and the rebounding of Kaitlyn Davis to come away with a 57-46 victory at Levien Gymnasium.

With the win, the Light Blue are 3-0 in league play (12-0 overall) for the first time in program history and remain tied with Princeton for first place.  For the Red, the defeat was their first of the year when holding an opponent to 60 points or less and they are now 1-3 in the conference (6-9 overall).

Read more

Harvard men hold off Dartmouth rally late, stay statistically well-rounded early

by
Senior guard Noah Kirkwood was characteristically instrumental in Harvard’s win over Dartmouth Monday, contributing 24 points on 9-for-15 shooting and five assists in 33 minutes. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

When Denham Wojcik hit his first basket of the night to put Harvard up 11 with 6:50 remaining, the Crimson looked well on their way to beating Dartmouth and securing their second straight Ivy victory.  Unfortunately, their travel partner got a second wind and cut the lead to one with the ball in Aaryn Rai’s hands for one last shot.

Read more

Yale women best Brown off buzzer-beater from Christen McCann

by

Now that was a finish to remember.

Yale overcame a slow start and the absence of all-everything Camilla Emsbo to injury to beat Brown at John J. Lee Amphitheater Monday, 69-67, on a layup by Christen McCann with 1.8 seconds remaining.

 

Jenna Clark, the Ivy assist leader, dished on the winning bucket.

The winner was set up by a Klara Astrom steal with five seconds remaining. Coach Allison Guth then called a timeout to set up the winning shot.

McCann played a full 39 minutes and led her team with 19 points on 7-for-9 shooting. The Port St. Lucie, Fla. native also added eight rebounds.

Versatile senior forward Alex Cade took over for Emsbo at center and led Yale (10-6, 3-1 Ivy) with 11 rebounds while standing out with a career-high 18 points.

First-year guard Isabella Mauricio led Brown (5-11, 0-4) with her own career high of 23 points.

Brown carried a 41-37 lead into the locker room off of a torrid 53% shooting from the field. The Bears had taken a 22-21 lead at the end of the first quarter on a Mauricio trey at the buzzer and then went on a 12-0 run to start the second quarter.

Both Mauricio and freshman forward Amanda Latkany had eight in the half and Yale was paced by Jenna Clark with seven. Latkany had missed both the Harvard and Princeton losses.

Yale outscored Brown over the third stanza, fueled by an 8-0 run. Brown carried a narrow 56-55 lead into the last period.

Brown entered the game averaging only 55 points per game but shot 47% from the floor.

Yale outrebounded the visitors 43-31 and held a 16-1 advantage on the offensive glass to claim its third straight win.

Brown hosts Columbia and Yale hosts Penn next Saturday, both at 2 p.m.

Winter storm threat forces postponement of Columbia-Cornell contests as women’s game moves to Thursday

by

ESPN was the first to report the postponement of Monday’s men’s and women’s Columbia-Cornell games on Sunday afternoon, but no reason was given and the changes had not been updated to the individual team’s websites.  A representative from Cornell Athletics informed Ivy Hoops Online that both contests would be postponed due to a winter storm expected to hit the northeast from Sunday night until Monday.

Read more