Denton Koon transfers to Hofstra

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CBS Sports reported today that Princeton transfer Denton Koon has committed to Hofstra. The 6-8, 210-pound senior forward missed last season after suffering an MCL injury in October. He will be instantly eligible.

Koon was initially expected to return for the 2014-15 campaign but Koon later elected to graduate from Princeton this spring and use his final year of eligibility at another school. Koon played in just 18 games in 2013-14 and was ruled out for the remainder of last season in February due to a knee injury. Koon finished Princeton with career averages of 7.6 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. As a sophomore in 2012-13, Koon earned an All-Ivy honorable mention for his 10.5 points per contest, including 43.2 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

Health permitting, Koon will provide a versatile frontcourt talent for the Pride who can drive in the lane with ease and stretch defenses with his shooting.

 

From the archives: “A Sense of Where You Are”

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As noted in this space before, the 2014-15 campaign marked the 50th anniversary of Princeton’s 1965 Final Four berth. And as noted by The Classical earlier this month, the New Yorker freed one of its greatest all-time pieces from behind its paywall to coincide with March Madness – a longform masterpiece by the great John McPhee on Princeton’s Bill Bradley first published in the Jan. 23, 1965 issue of the magazine. The book, McPhee’s first, is 15,897 words long, so I’m not going to use a ton of words to set up the piece. Just read it here and be amazed by McPhee’s characteristically amazing storytelling and Bill Bradley’s talents as a basketball player and figure in the public eye, even as it appeared that Bradley might bypass the NBA en route to a less conventional career path at the time. Even if it Bradley hadn’t enjoyed a Hall of Fame career with the New York Knicks or gave Al Gore a serious run for his money during the 2000 Democratic presidential primary race as a former three-term senator, he’d still be worthy of the longform piece that hopefully you’ve already started reading by now.

Alex Mitola transfers to George Washington

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As Alex Kline (@TheRecruitScoop) reported today, Dartmouth junior guard transfer Alex Mitola has transferred to George Washington, where he is instantly eligible.

Mitola, who was also in the mix at Temple, La Salle, Vanderbilt and several other schools, announced his decision to transfer earlier this month, and visited GW Monday and Tuesday. Mitola should fit like a glove at GW, which struggled shooting the ball last season benefit immediately from Mitola”s range as a shooter, as Mitola finished second in the Ivy League in three-pointers made in his final season with the Big Green and has stretched opposing defenses throughout his career.

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Shonn Miller transfers to UConn

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Shonn Miller chose UConn after Ivy rules forbade him from returning to Cornell for another year. (USA Today Sports)
Shonn Miller chose UConn after Ivy rules forbade him from returning to Cornell for another year. (USA Today Sports)

Shonn Miller is headed to the Huskies.

Since the Ivy League prohibits the participation of graduate students and Miller, missed the 2013-14 season following shoulder surgery, the 2014-15 first-team All-Ivy senior forward still has a year of eligibility to spend at a non-Ivy school. Now he’ll spend it at four-time national champion UConn, where he is instantly eligible.

“It just felt like home,” Miller told ESPN.com. “I got along with all the players and everybody in general just welcomed me like I was a part of their family.”

Miller was a boss at both ends of the floor last season, notching 16.8 points, 8.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals in 31.3 minutes per contest. He finished second in the Ivy League in scoring, rebounding and free throw percentage, as well as fourth in both blocks and three-pointers made, and eighth in steals. There’s really not a lot that Miller can’t do, and his absence in 2013-14 hit Cornell like a ton of bricks, with the Big Red going 2-26 without him.

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Maodo Lo not declaring for NBA Draft

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Maodo Lo
Maodo Lo”s not going anywhere. (AP Photo)

Don”t worry, Columbia fans: the greatest basketball player of all time isn”t graduating just yet.

Okay, that”s hyperbole from a Columbia fan. But you can”t deny that “Chairman” Maodo Lo was one of the Ivy League”s best players in the 2014-15 campaign. And, despite rumors out of German media that Lo was declaring for the 2015 NBA draft, the junior guard made it clear on Thursday that he”ll be wearing Columbia blue next year.

“He did go through some preliminary discussions, with the help of coach (Kyle) Smith, to see what his potential pro prospects are, but he had every intention on coming back,” Columbia Sports Information Associate Director Mike Kowalsky said. “They were just doing their due diligence.”

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Courtney Banghart earns Naismith Coach of the Year honors

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Courtney Banghart WSJPrinceton coach Courtney Banghart was named Naismith Coach of the Year Tuesday for leading the Tigers to a 30-0 regular season and notching the second ever NCAA Tournament victory for the Ivy League.

Banghart becomes the first Ivy League coach, women’s or men’s, to be named Naismith Coach of the Year. Banghart was also named to Forbes’ list of the 50 Greatest World Leaders last month, natch.

Alex Mitola to become graduate transfer, play final season elsewhere

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According to several sources, including his high school coach, Dartmouth junior guard Alex Mitola will become a graduate transfer and play his final season at another school.

“Alex always wanted to see if he could play up at a little bit of a higher level,” Gill St. Bernard’s coach Mergin Sina told Jerry Carino. “Out of high school he didn’t have a chance to do it.”

The news represents a huge loss for Big Green coach Paul Cormier and the Dartmouth basketball program. Mitola averaged 12.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, good for seventh in scoring, first in free-throw percentage, 10th in assists, second in three-pointers made, second in assist/turnover ratio and second in minutes played.

“I’m disappointed and think he’s making a terrible mistake,” Paul Cormier said to the Valley News of Mitola. “He can’t get that (fourth year at Dartmouth) back. The decision that requires the most substance is staying here and following through with the teammates you came in with.”

The Valley News also reports that Mitola plans to play his final season of college eligibility with a higher-profile program and pursue a graduate business degree before playing professionally overseas.

“We’ve gone from nine victories to 12 to 14 since Alex has been here,” Cormier told the Valley News. “He could have left a real legacy. I hope this isn’t something he later regrets, because it’s not ending the way I think it should.”

“It was hard because I know the situation it puts them in, but I felt it was what was best for me and my career moving forwards,” Mitola said.

The Ivy League will miss Mitola’s potent long-range shooting, superior ballhandling and clutch play. Dartmouth would not have made its first postseason since 1959 this season without him. I discussed what I thought Mitola’s versatility meant to Dartmouth in an On the Vine in February, and One Bid Wonders correctly identified him as the “culture changer” in Hanover earlier this season.

2015 Outgoing Ivy Transfers

Denton Koon

Shonn Miller

Kenyatta Smith

Rafael Maia

Cam Crocker

Galal Cancer

Alex Mitola

ALL FOOLS’ DAY: Donahue to host ‘Donahue’

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Penn announced Wednesday that new head basketball coach Steve Donahue will be hosting a new show to be broadcast weekly on the Penn Sports Network.

The show will be called “Donahue” and held at the Palestra, where it will adopt a talk show format in which Donahue will hold discussions with relevant guests about previously taboo topics concerning Penn Athletics, including declining game attendance, lack of player development in recent years, President Amy Gutmann’s commitment to the program and declining game attendance.

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ALL FOOLS’ DAY: Brown basketball budget to be used on hockey team

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Athletic director Jack Hayes announced Wednesday that Brown, which has easily totaled the lowest amount of basketball expenses among all Ivies since 2004 according to Office of Postsecondary Education statistics, will transfer the remaining monies in its basketball budget to the budget for its men’s hockey team.

“Hockey rules at Brown, inasmuch as it rules at all,” Hayes said in a statement. “I just wanted to be transparent for once about where our institutional support really lies.”

The basketball team will raise funds going forward by pooling together lunch money taken from the players by coach Mike Martin.

ALL FOOLS’ DAY: Dartmouth raises fourth-place banner

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The Dartmouth basketball team on Tuesday raised a banner at Leede Arena to honor its CIT berth this season, the program’s first postseason appearance since 1959.

The banner read, “Fourth Place”.

Dartmouth then raised a 2014-15 Ivy League championship banner honoring Harvard next to the fourth-place banner.

“We made this happen,” Dartmouth forward Gabas Maldunas said.

Maldunas then told reporters a banner honoring him would be raised at Lavietes Pavilion next week. Maldunas said the banner will hang next to Harvard’s own 2014-15 Ivy championship banner and read, “Thank you, Gabas.”

“You’re welcome,” Maldunas told reporters about the scoop, which was later confirmed by Harvard athletic director Bob Scalise.