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NEW YORK – The opening day of the Ivy League Tournament brought the four women’s teams to Levien Gymnasium on the campus of Columbia University.
Below are highlights of the press conferences and links to the videos. (Check out the game previews from Steve Silverman)
The Ivy League Tournament kicks off on Friday night at Levien Gym with an exciting slate of semifinal games in the women’s competition.
The bracket this year has a familiar look as the same four teams from last year’s tournament will face off against each other in this year’s edition of Ivy Madness.
The No. 1 Princeton Tigers, co-champions during the regular season, will take on the No. 4 Penn Quakers, while the No. 2 and co-champion Columbia Lions will seek to avenge a disappointing loss in last year’s semifinal against the No. 3 Harvard Crimson.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these semifinal matchups:
The lead-up to the season finale for the Dartmouth men’s basketball team was like no other in program history.
In fact, it was like no other in NCAA history.
Three times in the Ivy Tournament era, Mike Martin’s Brown teams have tied for fourth place only to lose out on a postseason bid due to being on the wrong side of the league’s tiebreakers. After a thrilling overtime victory over Harvard on Friday night and a blowout win against Dartmouth on Saturday, the Bears earned its first trip to Ivy Madness.
Brown (11-17, 7-6 Ivy) seemed out of the race for the tournament after starting off league play at 2-6 and hosting only two more games in the Pizzitola Sports Center. Three weeks later, Bruno, winners of five straight, is a serious threat to challenge Princeton, Yale and Cornell for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
After the weekend, Harvard (14-12, 5-8), which also lost to Yale on Saturday, missed out on its third straight conference tournament and can do no better than fifth place. Dartmouth (5-21, 1-12), which has never made it to Ivy Madness and was defeated by the Bulldogs on Friday, is locked into last place and plans on holding its historic unionization vote on Tuesday before welcoming the Crimson in the Tuesday season finale for both teams.
Yale men’s basketball picked the right time of the year to peak.
The Bulldogs thrashed Harvard, 80-60, at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday night to move to persist in sharing the Ivy League’s top slot with Princeton.
“We had as good a start to finish as we have had in a long time,” coach James Jones said.
The Princeton women’s basketball team rebounded from its first setback of the Ivy League season to defeat Harvard, 60-49, in the first of back-to-back games this weekend at Jadwin Gymnasium.
The Tigers (21-4, 11-1 Ivy) needed a second half rally to shake off the Crimson, who led 35-30 after Princeton played one of its worst halves of basketball this season.
Tigers coach Carla Berube, senior guard Chet Nweke and sophomore guard Madison St. Rose reflect on a 60-49 win for Princeton (21-4, 11-1 Ivy) over Harvard (15-10, 8-4) at Jadwin Gym Friday: Audio Player
The Harvard women’s basketball team used an efficient fourth quarter to overcome a tough challenge from Brown on Saturday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion.
With the 80-73 victory, the Crimson (15-9, 8-3 Ivy) captured the third ticket to next month’s Ivy League Tournament at Levien Gym. It’ll be the third straight conference postseason appearance for Harvard and the sixth overall.
The Bears (14-10, 5-6), looking for their first Ivy Madness berth since the inaugural tournament in 2017, fell back into a tie with Penn. Both teams remain one game ahead of Yale with three games left in the regular season.
The dagger is officially in Penn’s season after the Quakers took a difficult-to-swallow road defeat at Harvard, 74-70.
Penn (10-16, 2-9 Ivy) completed a comeback from 17 points down in the second half after Clark Slajchert drained an open three from the right wing off an offensive rebound to tie the game at 62 with 5:45 to play.
But the Quakers were ultimately undone by a terrible break on a 50/50 ball when it mattered most.
With Penn down two points and the clock ticking below 3:45 to play, junior Nick Spinoso poked the ball free from Harvard’s Louis Lesmond in the post. Freshman Sam Brown dove but couldn’t come up with the loose ball. Instead, Harvard’s Malik Mack was able to recover it and swing the ball to Lesmond for an open corner three out of the scramble. Lesmond drained the shot to put the Crimson (14-10, 5-6) up two possessions.
Truth be told, Penn’s season effectively ended well before Saturday. That’s what happens when you lose eight games in a row during a 14-game conference season.
All that’s left to play for now is pride and future development. There’s plenty to rue about Saturday, starting with how …