General

Previewing Penn-Princeton and Harvard-Dartmouth

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IHO breaks down the two games comprising Saturday evening’s Ivy conference play-opening slate:

Penn at Princeton, 7 p.m.

Last season: Princeton beat Penn twice by a combined three points, and the Ps’ last meeting at Jadwin Gym on March 12 put a scare into the Tigers, who were outscored 40-23 over the final 14:52 in a 72-71 victory over the Red and Blue. Princeton committed 16 turnovers, its highest amount in Ivy play last season, and then-freshman Penn guard Tyler Hamilton came out of nowhere to provide 11 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals in 37 minutes, easily the best performance of his Penn career.

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Ivy Power Rankings – Jan. 2, 2017

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1. Yale (6-5)

Yale played just one game in the two weeks since the last Ivy Power Rankings, but it was indicative of the kind of performance coach James Jones may extract from his youthful roster come Ivy play. Freshman forward Jordan Bruner enjoyed arguably his best game as an Eli in Yale’s 83-77 loss at Temple, registering a career-high 15 points in just 26 minutes to go along with eight rebounds and four blocks, the third time in his six games that he has collected four blocks. Senior center Sam Downey nabbed 17 rebounds, including nine on the offensive glass, in 33 minutes. Yale committed only 11 turnovers and shot 16-for-19 from the free throw line, suggesting the prototype of a team that thrives on efficiency, superior rebounding and stout perimeter defense. The Elis also lead the conference in three-point field goal percentage, and Yale enjoyed a 3-for-8 long-range performance from freshman forward Miye Oni at Temple to go along with five assists versus just one turnover (not bad for playing his 11th game at a high-major).

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Ivy Power Rankings – Dec. 5, 2016

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This one Ivy League season has been worthy of a shrug. The funk began when Yale junior guard and Ivy Player of the Year candidate Makai Mason was declared out for the season due to injury, and it deepened when it became obvious that Harvard coach Tommy Amaker had more tinkering than expected to do with his impact freshman-heavy roster. Preseason favorite Princeton, meanwhile, got clipped at Lehigh and is 0-3 against higher-ranked teams in KenPom. And league losses to Binghamton (Cornell), Army (Columbia), Longwood (Dartmouth), Navy (Penn) and Bryant (Yale) have suggested that the league has a lot of room for improvement. As a result, the Ivy League has fallen from 14th in KenPom’s preseason Division I conference rankings to 18th in just three weeks.

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Ivy Power Rankings – Nov. 28, 2016

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Our Ivy power rankings take the measure of the Ancient Eight’s pluses and minuses since Nov. 21. Here are last week’s power rankings.

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Ivy Power Rankings – Nov. 21, 2016

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1. Yale (2-1)

Who outside of New Haven expected Yale to have this kind of start when then-Ivy Player of the Year candidate Makai Mason was declared out for this season with a foot injury?

And who expected Yale to gel so quickly after Ivy Rookie of the Year candidate Jordan Bruner reportedly suffered an ACL sprain earlier this month?

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Ivy League basketball 2016-17 outlook

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What happened last year: A season after Harvard was a hard-fought one and done in the NCAA Tournament and Yale was snubbed by the NIT, the Ivies had a much better go of the postseason in 2016. Yale earned a No. 12 seed in the Big Dance and upset No. 5 Baylor before nearly sustaining an incredible comeback against No. 4 Duke in round two. It made for a memorable narrative – the Elis, absent from the NCAA Tournament, beat the Bears at their own rebounding game, with a meme-friendly moment after the game.

Yale’s win marked the fifth NCAA Tournament win for the Ivy League since 2010, bringing the league to an impressive 5-7 mark (.417) against substantially higher-seeded competition. The Ivy has proven it can hang with high-majors time and time again, and analytic databases such as KenPom have shown that the league should be nabbing higher seeds in the tourney than it has been this decade.

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Ivy League Digital Network now available on Apple TV, Roku

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The Ivy League announced on August 24 availability on Apple TV and Roku for its coverage of conference athletics.

ILDN is a nine-channel network, and in-home television viewing of ILDN is now possible for the first time as a result of the new Apple TV and Roku availability.

In-game television viewing of live events on ILDN began last month.

ILDN was launched in 2013 as the league’s first-ever digital sports network, created by the league in partnership with NeuLion as a nine-channel video platform. It consists of eight channels for each individual school and one conference-wide channel which features all available Ancient Eight digital content across more than 30 sports.

In addition to the new in-game television viewing availability, the Ivy League continues its partnership with ESPN to simulcast select ILDN broadcasts on ESPN3 and the ESPN app.

April Fools: Dartmouth hires @DartmouthMBK to be new head coach

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The powerhouse that's only a tweet away.
The powerhouse that’s only a tweet away.

Opting to go in a different direction after firing Paul Cormier, Dartmouth Athletic Director Harry Sheehy announced in a press conference in the boxing gym at Leede Arena Friday he was hiring Dartmouth’s Twitter feed to be the Big Green’s new head coach.

Sheehy told excited Ivy basketball reporters that he was impressed by @DartmouthMBK’s Twitter banter with Ivy Hoops Online and other Dartmouth hoops followers, and that that kind of charisma is what it will take to get Big Green basketball a national following beyond Hanover.

“I want to win the hearts and minds of basketball fans across the country, not just in Hanover,” Sheehy said. “Rudy LaRusso may not be walking through that door, but a program-saving Twitter feed sure is.”

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April Fools: Maodo Lo retires from basketball to pursue art career

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MANHATTAN — At a hastily called press conference in Low Memorial Library, Columbia star guard Maodo Lo announced his retirement from the game of basketball, citing his intent to begin a career as an artist.

Though most in attendance expected Lo, the third leading scorer in Columbia history, to declare for the NBA Draft, the 6-foot-2 scoring guard stated that he felt a call to the world of studio art.

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Enough already with the ‘new Ivy League’ narrative

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The Yale Bulldogs’ terrific showing in this year’s NCAA Tournament has inspired a new national narrative. As a Wall Street Journal headline put it, “The Ivy League finally merits your respect.”

But as someone who has been following Ivy League basketball for more than forty years, the story that’s being promoted in certain circles is revisionist history that just makes me want to scream.

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