Ivy women’s hoops weeks in review: Nov. 29 – Dec. 12

by

Princeton (4-7)
12/2 vs Davidson 65-57
12/8 vs Quinnipiac 54-42
12/11 vs Monmouth 79-47

Before the return of Bella Alarie on Friday night, Princeton went 2-7 with home victories bookending a seven game losing streak.  While the youthful Tigers have gained valuable game experience during this time, culminating in a come from behind win over Davidson, the return of the reigning Ivy Player of the Year immediately showed why they were picked to repeat as league champs.  In Alarie’s first game back, she had 16 points, a career high 19 rebounds and 5 blocks.  Not only did the Tigers win by 12 over a Quinnipiac squad that made it to the second round of last year’s NCAA Tournament, but Alarie was named Ivy League co-Player of the Week.  In her follow-up performance at Monmouth, she put up 16 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks.

During Alarie’s absence, Carlie Littlefield and Gabrielle Rush stepped up for the Orange & Black.  Littlefield averaged 15.3 points (4th Ivy), 5.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists (11th), 1.8 made threes (9th) and 1.7 steals (4th) in 33.9 minutes per game.  Rush, meanwhile, added 13.6 points (8th), 6.7 boards (9th), 2.8 made threes (2nd) and 1.7 steals (6th) per contest.

Over the first part of the season, the team has been uncharacteristically weak in two point shooting (40.9 percent), three point defense (35.9 percent) and offensive rebounding rate (27.5 percent).  With their premier post player back and other important rotation players expected back from the DL soon, the Tigers should expect those numbers to improve significantly.

Read more

Report: Columbia’s Mike Smith out for season with torn meniscus

by

According to an Associated Press report on Columbia’s 82-73 loss at Boston College Wednesday night, Lions coach Jim Engles announced that star point guard Mike Smith has a torn meniscus and will miss the remainder of the 2018-2019 season. Smith’s injury occurred in the first half of last Friday’s game against Bryant.  The junior point guard ends his season as one of the Ivy League’s top performers with 15.8 points, 5.0 assists and 2.3 steals per game.

Read more

Q&A with current Baylor and former Yale standout Makai Mason

by
Makai Mason is averaging 13.2 points and 2.6 assists per game through his first five contests as a Baylor Bear after missing the first three games of the season with an ankle injury. (Baylor Athletics)
You must remember him. That incredible 31-point performance for Yale in the 2016 NCAA Tournament is hard to forget.
Then injuries took hold and he only saw action for Yale in one game last season, at Harvard. Well, he made quite an impression on Baylor coach Scott Drew en route to those 31 points, and Mason is now integral to the Baylor offense as a fifth-year player. He is averaging 30.8 minutes and 13.2 points per game, having scored 18 points in two different games for the Bears so far this season. IHO caught up with him recently.

Read more

Penn basketball is playing team basketball – and it’s a whole lot of fun to watch

by

Question: How many Ivy League hoops squads could lose their leading scorer from the preceding year in the first five minutes of a nascent season and still go on to beat KenPom No. 44 Miami as well as the AP No. 17 defending national champions, all the while compiling an overall 9-2 record?

Answer: None — except Penn.

The fact that the Quakers have been so successful so far this season appears to be less a factor of overall talent (which is substantial nonetheless), and more of a function of overall depth and system.

Nowhere were these latter two qualities on full display than on Tuesday night before a packed house when the Quakers knocked off Villanova, thus ending the Wildcats’ 25 game Big 5 winning streak as well as their painful 16-year reign over Penn.

Before the season started, I wrote for IHO, “Clearly, the marquee game will be against the Wildcats. I can tell you from experience, anything can happen in a Big 5 game. I just hope it happens this year.”

And it did.

Read more

Penn beats No. 17 Villanova for first time since 2002, snaps Wildcats’ 25-game Big 5 win streak

by

Penn did it.

The Red & Blue were simply better than the defending national champion Villanova Wildcats throughout their matchup at the Palestra Tuesday night, notching a 78-75 victory that underscored how each Big 5 squad is trending in opposite directions.

The continuation of Penn’s remarkable improvement made history at No. 17 Villanova’s expense, repeatedly getting easy buckets via cuts to the basket and making just enough free throws down the stretch to snap Villanova’s 15-game winning streak over Penn (dating back to Dec. 10, 2002) and 25-game Big 5 win streak (dating back to Dec. 5, 2013).

Read more

Yale falls to Duke again after early back-and-forth

by
It’s not a bad gig, covering Yale and getting to see the Elis play twice at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 2015, not to mention an inspirational NCAA game in Providence in 2016.
But let’s start from the beginning. The flight to Raleigh on Friday was simple and a tour of the Duke Basketball Museum & Sports Hall of Fame and Krzyzewskiville, where Duke students have camped out for tickets since about 1986, was a blast.
The privilege to attend the Yale shootaround on Saturday at 11:30 a.m., was even better thanks to coach James Jones, who was methodical in his preparation but sure to give ample time to some of his own family, including his peripatetic son Quincy, a great athlete in his own right. As always, he preached toughness and crafted a sound game plan against one of the top two teams in the country.

Read more

Ivies take Manhattan for MSG Holiday Festival

by

NEW YORK – Back in the day, the MSG Holiday Festival was a premier two day four team bracketed event that featured several of the nation’s top teams.  In addition to the classic 1964 Festival featuring Princeton (Bill Bradley), Michigan (Cazzie Russell), Syracuse (Dave Bing) and St. John’s (Coach Joe Lapchick), there were years like 1995, when Penn won the title and used it as a stepping stone to the AP Top 25; 1997, when Princeton was victorious on its way to a top 10 AP ranking; and 2009, when Cornell took the title on its way to a Sweet 16 appearance.  Over the last few years, the event has morphed into a one day double-header featuring the Johnnies and three other local mid-majors.  This year, the “worlds most famous arena” was home to a quarter of the Ancient Eight as Columbia took the subway and Princeton came up the NJ Turnpike to take part in the annual pre-Christmas tradition.

Before the Garden was cleaned up for the Knicks nightcap versus the Hornets, the Lions held off Iona  and the Tigers succumbed to the Red Storm.  While neither team was perfect and the results were spit, both teams had solid efforts and hope to use the day as a motivator as the Ivy schedule quickly approaches.

Read more

Princeton falls to St. John’s, but Jaelin Llewellyn makes big splash in collegiate debut

by

The Tigers returned to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 2000 to play the St. John’s Red Storm in the Holiday Festival. For decades, the Holiday Festival was the premier event of the preseason, played between Christmas and New Year’s, employing an actual tournament format.

The final in 1964 was one of the most memorable games in that entire season, matching Bill Bradley’s Tigers against Cazzie Russell’s Michigan Wolverines. Bradley canned 41 before fouling out with the Tigers holding a 12-point lead. The five-minute ovation he received was unmatched in Garden history. Alas, the Wolverines fought back, winning 80-78.

In Dec. 1997, Princeton beat Drexel and Niagara to win the Festival title on its way to a 27-2 record and an eighth-place national ranking in the final AP poll of that season. Current Princeton coach Mitch Henderson was a Tiger co-captain.

Read more

Ivy Tournament update: Ticket sales begin Tuesday

by

The Ivy League announced that tickets for the third Ivy Tournament will begin with a presale for select individuals on Tues., Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. For all other fans, tickets will be available on Fri., Dec. 14 at 10 a.m.  After holding the first two postseason events at Penn’s Palestra, this year’s version of Ivy Madness will take place on March 16th and 17th at Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater.  After checking out IvyMadness.com and reaching out to Matt Panto, Associate Executive Director, Strategic Communications & External Relations for the Ivy League, here is information on the upcoming ticket sale.

  • The presale will be for those individuals who are included on the league’s database for ticket holders to the first two Ivy Tournaments
  • Each institution has also been notifying select individuals via their school databases
  • Those eligible in the league’s database will receive an email on Monday (Dec. 10) and Tuesday morning (Dec. 11)
  • Right now, there are 2,800 seats available at the JLA. To accommodate some of the additional needs of the Tournament, there may be a slight reduction in Standing Room Only tickets that are available for regular season events
  • The is no maximum to the number of tickets that can be purchased
  • Tickets can be purchased for Session 1 (Men’s Semifinals – Saturday 12:30 pm & 3 pm); Session 2 (Women’s Semifinals – Saturday 6 pm & 30 minutes after conclusion of previous game); Session 3 (Men’s and Women’s Championships – Sunday 12 pm & 4 pm); All Sessions; Women’s Sessions Only; and Women’s Championship Only
  • Purchasing Men’s tickets for Saturday grants access to women’s games for that day
  • Prices for the different options are as followed: Session 1 (Mid-court $95, Balcony/SRO $35); Session 2 (Mid-court $25, Side Reserved Chairbacks $25, Balcony/SRO $25); Session 3 (Mid-court $75, Balcony/SRO $25); All Sessions (Mid-court $155, Balcony/SRO $55); Women’s Sessions Only (Mid-court $35, Balcony/SRO $35); Women’s Championship Only (Mid-court $20, Side Reserved Chairbacks $20, Balcony/SRO $20)
  • The following sections will not be available: Sections 001-004 at the endlines (participating team bands and cheerleaders); 101-102 and 104-105 along the sidelines behind the team benches (guests of participating player and coaches); 103 at the mid-court sideline on the team bench side (select media and game administrators)
  • Sections 106 and 110 will be reserved for students.  While the specific number of seats was not disclosed, each participating program will receive the same number of tickets for student and institutional sale
  • Courtside seats will not be available through the Ivy Madness website.  Those interested should contact the Yale Athletic Ticket office directly by calling (203) 432-1400
  • Select Balcony and Standing Room Only tickets may have limited view
  • Students from participating programs will need to contact their school’s ticket office to purchase tickets
  • For those not able to secure tickets to the games, the JLA will be open on Friday March 15th for fans to attend the free shootarounds for any/all of the eight teams.  The “Live from Ivy Madness” event, which will feature the shootarounds, press conferences and interviews, be available on ESPN+ from 8:45 am until (approximately) 5:00 pm.  The Men’s semifinals and Women’s final can be seen on ESPNU, the Women’s semifinals will be on ESPN3, and the Men’s final will be on ESPN2

 

Princeton bows to St. Joseph’s as defense gives way

by

Princeton did not expect its second straight contest against an A-10 foe to go as well as the first. St. Joseph’s, picked preseason number 2 in the conference and winner of three straight versus the Tigers, promised much stiffer competition than the 13th-ranked George Washington Colonials.

Princeton’s expectations were fulfilled.

Phil Martelli’s club, behind Lamarr Kimble’s 22-point second-half explosion, raced past the Tigers, 92-82, Wednesday in an intensely fought and entertaining battle.

Read more