General

Brown women defeat Adelphi, get ready for the start of Ivy play

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GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – The Brown women’s basketball team built several 20-point-plus second-half leads and held off a determined Adelphi to come away with a closer-than-expected 75-62 victory on Wednesday evening. With the win, the Bears secured their third victory in the penultimate contest of a seven game road trip and improved its overall record to 8-7.

The game, a rare visit to a Division II program, was the result of a cancelled late December game against Howard and the need to fill an empty slot before the start of the Ivy schedule. With most teams starting league play in January and limited time at the end of 2018 calendar, there were few takers.

“I’ve known (Adephi head coach) Missy (Traversi) for a long time,” said Brown coach Sarah Behn.  “We’re grateful they squeezed the game in.”

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Harvard women upset No. 14 California, 85-79

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The Harvard women’s team (7-6) defeated the No. 14 California Golden Bears at Haas Pavilion on Sunday afternoon, 85-79, for its first victory over a ranked opponent since coach Kathy Delaney-Smith’s No. 16 Crimson defeated No. 1 Stanford, 71-67, in the opening round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament.  The last time an Ancient Eight team bested a ranked opponent before Sunday was a 91-85 Yale win over No. 15 Florida State in Dec. 2015.

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Ivy women’s hoops in review: Dec. 13-22

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Princeton (7-7)
12/15 vs Marist (#14 Mid-Major Top 25) 60-57
12/19 at St. Francis (Brooklyn) 83-64
12/21 at Hartford 75-38

The Tigers are on a six game win streak, including all five games that Bella Alarie has played since returning from a broken right wrist.  The reigning Ivy Player of the Year, who has been named Player of the Week in each of her first two weeks back, is absolutely crushing the competition with 19.6 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.6 blocks per game.  Alarie’s presence in the middle has helped the defense limit its opponents to 48.6 points per game, while opening up the team’s transition offense and improving its production to 70.2 points per contest.

The Tigers will look to extend its dominance next Saturday when they travel to New Hampshire (3-9) in the team’s last non-conference game before stating league play at home against Penn on Jan. 5.

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Post-holiday program alert: Ivy League to launch “Road to Ivy Madness” podcast

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On Thursday, the Ivy League office announced that it will produce a weekly “Road to Ivy Madness” podcast for the upcoming conference schedule. The 12 episodes, available each Wednesday on IvyLeague.com and Apple Podcasts, begin on Jan. 2, three days before the opening of league play with a Penn-Princeton doubleheader at Jadwin Gym.  Each “Road to Ivy Madness,” hosted by Bill Spaulding, is expected to be 20-25 minutes in length and feature major storylines in both the men’s and women’s divisions.

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Foul trouble and poor rebounding doom Cornell at Toledo

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Despite making their first five shots and pulling ahead to an 11-point lead just six minutes into the game, the Big Red faded late amid an 86-70 road loss to the Toledo Rockets.

Matt Morgan led the way for Cornell (5-6) with 24 points, connecting on two three-pointers and hitting all 10 of his free throws. Josh Warren had another solid night, finishing with 14 points on a 6-for-9 clip, while adding seven rebounds, six assists and two blocks. Jimmy Boeheim had eight points and two rebounds, and seven players for Cornell ranged between three and seven points on the night.

Cornell came out firing on all cylinders, hitting its first five shots, three from Morgan. The Big Red were up 13-5 at the first media timeout, and then up 19-8 minutes later. Then Toledo (11-2) went on a mega-run and took its first lead at 26-25 with 7:30 to go. Cornell found itself down 48-39 at the break but started the second half quickly thanks to a three from Morgan. Despite being in striking range for most of the second half, the Big Red just couldn’t string together enough stops to get closer than six down and finally ran out of steam with about seven minutes to go. Remember that the tilt with Toledo was Cornell’s third game in four days.

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Cornell makes 16 three-pointers, fights off late rally in win over Longwood

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Matt Morgan scored 17 points, with all five of his makes from three, and Terrance McBride’s 5-of-6 free-throw shooting down the stretch was enough to fight off a late rally from the Longwood Lancers and preserve a 70-64 win. Cornell evened their record out again at .500, improving to 5-5 while Longwood fell to 8-5.

Cornell shot a very impressive 16-of-32 from three, the third-most three pointers made in a game in school history. However, the Big Red hit just six two-pointers in the game, shooting a dismal 6-of-24.

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Niagara makes second-half comeback, stuns Cornell

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In their first game back after their extended break, the Cornell Big Red took an eight-point lead at Niagara with seven minutes left, led by big man Josh Warren. But the Purple Eagles stormed back and stole the game from the Big Red with a second to go, winning 77-74.

Niagara guard Keleaf Tate hit a wide open fading three-pointer with 1.1 seconds remaining when big man Dominic Robb saved the ball from going out of bounds, after Steven Julian swatted the original go-ahead three for one of his five blocks on the day. Niagara improved to 5-4 after previously coming off of wins against Pitt and New Hampshire, and Cornell fell to 4-5 with another game waiting for them in less than 24 hours.

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