General

Columbia’s Lukas Meisner ends college career after signing pro contract

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While Ivy Hoops fans were still processing the disturbing allegation against former Penn men’s coach Jerome Allen, the Columbia Spectator broke the surprising news that rising senior Lukas Meisner had signed a pro contract and would be forgoing his senior year in Morningside Heights. Columbia Athletics posted its own story detailing the move a few minutes later.

Meisner, originally from Braunschweig, inked a contract to go back home to Germany and play for Medi Bayreuth of the easyCredit Basketball Bundesliga. The team came in fourth place in the BBL in 2017-2018 and sixth in the German Cup. The 6′ 8″ forward started 24 of 25 games for the Lions in 2017-2018, averaging 27.5 minutes and 11.2 points per game. With his 50 percent overall and 41.7 percent three-point rates, he joined Princeton’s Myles Stephens as the only two Ivy Leaguers to shoot more than 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three last year. His 7.5 total rebounds and six defensive boards per contest were tops in the conference and he became the first Columbia player to lead the Ivy League in rebounds since Jim Tubridy in 1994-1995.

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Brett Kavanaugh and the ’85-’86 Yale Bulldogs

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Following the recent nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the Yale Daily News noted that the Eli alum (’83-’87 Undergrad; ’87-’90 Law) was once a writer at the paper’s sports department. While journalists and commentators across the nation scour and highlight his voluminous legal output, we here at IHO have looked at his writings to take a (lengthy) look back at his work with the 1985-1986 Yale men’s basketball team.

The Bulldogs finished the 1984-1985 season with a 14-12 overall record and a 7-7 mark in the Ivy League.  They were tied for fourth with Harvard and Princeton, three games off the pace of league champ Penn, two games behind Columbia and one game back of Cornell.  Yale won five of its last seven, including a home sweep of the Empire State Ivies and a 77-75 victory over the Quakers at the Palestra.  Sophomore center Chris Dudley, who averaged 12.6 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game, was named to the All-Ivy first team.

Penn, led by first team All-Ivy junior guard Perry Bromwell and junior center Bruce Lefkowitz, was the preseason favorite to win the conference.  In his November 21, 1985 season preview, Kavanaugh wrote, “Penn finished 10-4 in the Ivies last season, and their four losses were by a total of only 11 points.  If they are disciplined and play as a team under new coach Tom Schneider, the Quakers should repeat as champions.”  According to the coaches preseason poll, Yale was picked second, followed by Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown.  Kavanaugh predicted a similar top five with Dartmouth, Brown, and Harvard in the bottom three spots.

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Talking Ivy Madness with Ivy League Senior Assistant Director Trevor Rutledge-Leverenz

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After holding the first two Ivy Tournaments at the University of Pennsylvania’s Palestra, it was widely assumed that the 2019 edition would move away from the league’s most famous arena. While the reviews for both events were positive from players, coaches, administrators and fans, there were some league stakeholders who had concerns. The main issues generally focused on the home court advantage for Penn, attendance problems associated with holding the tournament in the conference’s southern-most location, and the timing of the women’s semifinal match-ups.

On May 24th, a day before the start of Memorial Day Weekend, the Ivy League office announced that the third edition of Ivy Madness would be held on the campus of Yale University at the John J. Lee Amphitheater (JLA) at Payne Whitney Gymnasium. The tournament will occur on March 16th and 17th, in the middle of Yale’s two week spring recess, with the games taking place at the same times as the 2018 tournament. On Saturday, the men’s semifinals will tip-off at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., while the women’s games will start at 6 p.m. and approximately 30 minutes following the conclusion of the previous contest. The men’s final will be held at noon on Sunday, and the women’s championships will be at 4 p.m.  All tournament games will be televised by ESPN on its family of networks.

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Brown women’s basketball to greatly expand its roster for 2018-2019

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With a fourth place finish, an appearance in the inaugural Ivy Tournament, and a postseason win in the first round of the 2017 Women’s Basketball Invitational, things looked bright for the Brown women’s team heading into 2017-2018. The Bears, which did not lose a single member of the previous year’s squad, were picked fourth in the league’s preseason poll and there was talk among Ivy fans that this group could be the first since 2011-2012 to break the Harvard-Penn-Princeton stranglehold on the conference’s top three spots.

A 9-1 start, including Tournament titles at the University of Pacific and the Ocean State Tip-Off, added to the program’s confidence as it returned from finals to visit Boston University on December 22nd. Up 28 points with 3:22 remaining in the third quarter, starting three-guard Taylor Will came off the court with a knee injury and did not return to action for the rest of the year. While Brown defeated the Terriers, Howard University and Johnson & Wales to complete its non-conference scheduled with a program-best 12-1 record, the Bears aura of invincibility had been shattered.

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Remembering former student sports reporter John McNamara

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Since Ivy Hoops Online is a site devoted to Ivy League basketball, it would not seem to be a place to write about Thursday’s tragic shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis. However, the location of the assault and the death of one of its employees, John McNamara, reaches close to home for many of the people that have written at IHO over the years.

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Four to join Columbia men’s basketball in 2018-2019

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Heading into the last weekend of conference play in each of the last two seasons, the Columbia men’s basketball team held the advantage for the final spot in the Ivy Tournament. Sweeps on the road by Brown and Yale in 2017, as well as losses to Dartmouth and Harvard this past March, kept the Lions away from the league’s postseason both years. Coach Jim Engles, heading into his third year as head coach in Morningside Heights, will look to change his team’s fortunes in 2018-2019 as Columbia seeks its first visit to Ivy Madness.

The Lions finished last season 8-19 with a 5-9 fifth place record in the Ivy League.  In conference play, they were 5-2 at Levien Gymnasium, but winless away from home.   The bright spots for Columbia were a 16 made three pointer performance against Cornell, a 83-76 win over eventual co-champion Harvard and a 25 point win over Princeton.  The Lions averaged 76.4 points and 10 made threes a game overall, as well as 77.8 points and 9.4 made threes in the Ancient Eight.  Their opponents, however, scored 77.2 points and 10 made threes overall, while conference foes put up 78.1 points and 10.9 made threes a game.  Looking towards 2018-2019, Columbia will need to keep its offense intact, while improving its three point defense (38.4 percent in Division 1 games and 39.8 percent in Ivy League) if it wants to move into the league’s upper division.

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Cornell’s Stone Gettings to sit out 2018-19 and become graduate transfer

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On Monday evening, Jeff Goodman of ESPN tweeted that Cornell junior forward Stone Gettings would graduate in December and become a graduate transfer.  Gettings, a second-team All-Ivy member in 2017-2018, will sit out the 2018-2019 season in order to save his final year of eligibility.  The Malibu, California native told the Cornell Daily Sun, “I decided to graduate early in December, save myself a ton of money, and have another year to play somewhere else”.

Gettings arrived in Ithaca in the fall of 2015, as a member of Bill Courtney’s last recruiting class.  In his first game for the Big Red, he scored 14 points and hit 4 of 6 three pointers against Georgia Tech.  For the season, he played in 28 games, averaging 2.1 points, 1.8 rebounds and 9.5 minutes a contest.  Following Courtney’s dismissal, arguably, no Cornell player benefited more from the hiring of Princeton’s Brian Earl than Gettings. As the team’s featured front court player, his sophomore numbers increased to 12.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 25.6 minutes per game in his 29 starts.

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Princeton men’s basketball goes back to work

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The Tigers’ annual January reading period and their forced three-week hiatus come to an end this weekend with visits from the Yale Bulldogs and the Brown Bears to Jadwin Gym. This is a good time to assess the season to this point and offer some predictions for the remainder of the Ivy campaign.

After a 2-6 start, the Tigers rebounded nicely, winning five of the final six out-of-conference games to conclude that portion of their schedule at 7-7. Princeton was bitten by the injury bug for the third time in as many years.

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Penn women’s basketball tops Ivy League Preseason Media Poll, projected to pull off three-peat

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A three-peat is on its way if the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll for this upcoming season is on the mark.

Released Wednesday, the poll projects Penn to win its third straight Ivy League championship, the third time in four seasons the Red and Blue were chosen to finish atop the league.

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2017-18 Ivy Men’s Basketball Preseason Media Poll released, teleconference highlights

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The Ivy men’s basketball preseason media poll was released Tuesday, confirming that the top of the league appears to be a three-way scrum between Harvard, Yale and Princeton at this point. Yale received the most first-place votes (eight) but Harvard garnered the most points overall, awarding the Crimson their first perch atop the media poll standings since the 2014-15 season, which was also the last time Tommy Amaker’s club was Ivy League champion. Princeton received three first-place votes, finishing just behind Yale overall.

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