Ivy Friday Roundup

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Not a lot of intrigue or drama tonight. The higher-ranked Ivies held serve, and here’s how they did it:

Yale 62, Cornell 51

This one seemed over a couple of light years before it actually ended, in no small part due to Cornell’s continued inability to shoot the basketball. The Big Red finished with a 32 percent clip from the field. Despite committing 16 turnovers, Yale was never in danger falling off. Senior guard Javier Duren led the way with 13 points and eight rebounds (all of which came in the first half), making him the second guard in six days to post eight rebounds in the first half against the Big Red after Harvard’s Saunders did it Saturday. The Bulldogs became the second Ivy to get to 8-1 in the conference play just after…

Harvard 69, Penn 46

With Tony Hicks suspended and matching up against the perennial conference champion that beat them by 25 on their home court last month, the Quakers didn’t seem to have much of a chance. They fought admirably, led by freshman guard Antonio Woods’ 12 points and four assists. Still, Harvard had this one all the way. Harvard’s Boston Three Party of Wesley Saunders, Siyani Chambers and Steve Moundou-Missi combined to shoot 15-for-20 and lock up the Crimson’s fourth straight win over Penn.

Princeton 63, Dartmouth 56

The Tigers outscored the Big Green by 12 in the second half to pull out the win in Hanover and stay within two games of Harvard and Yale in the Ivy race. Pushing Princeton over the top was senior guard Clay Wilson, who scored in double figures for the first time in nine games with 11 points on 3-for-6 shooting from downtown. (Just kidding, there’s no downtown in Hanover!)

Columbia 76, Brown 59

This game was never really a game. Columbia led 48-28 at halftime and the Bears, which continue to struggle mightily on defense and never got within 14 again. Maodo Lo posted 24 points en route to a total of 33, canning only three fewer field goals than Brown’s entire roster.

Rosenberg = Durant: On evolving expectations

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Kevin Durant

Results are not the driving factor in fan happiness. Results in relation to expectations are.

For example, many Sixers fans are incredibly optimistic about the future despite the team’s putrid results on the court for a second straight year because they understand the front office’s plan and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Oklahoma City Thunder fans expected their team to compete for a championship before the season, but everything changed once Kevin Durant suffered a Jones fracture in his right foot and Russell Westbrook broke his hand on opening night. At 29-25, the Thunder are finally healthy and have an opportunity to reach the lofty goal but will face an uphill battle come playoff time. As a fan of the team, it would be understandable if a full-strength Thunder team got knocked out by the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. Had you told me this was the likely scenario in August, I would have been irate.

All of this brings me to the constantly shifting expectations and the ensuing questions raised by the 2014-15 Columbia Lions.

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Penn junior guard Tony Hicks suspended for weekend

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Penn Athletics announced today that junior guard Tony Hicks was suspended by coach Jerome Allen for Penn’s games at Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that Hicks did not travel with the team to New England.

Observers say Hicks twisted the hand of a Brown player in what appeared to be a sign of poor sportsmanship, which followed Hicks getting charged with a technical foul with 6:22 remaining in a 71-55 home loss to Brown for arguing with an official.

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IHO Power Poll: Columbia homer edition

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Several weeks ago, I was inspired by The Ancient Quaker’s epic power poll. If the AQ can create a ranking of the Ivy basketball teams so detached from Planet Earth that Penn would come in at No. 1, why couldn’t I do the same?

Behold, then: a totally scientific and rational power poll, with just three weekends left in the season.

I will follow the guideline established by the AQ from his power rankings: “I’ve decided to rank the teams as I see them which of course has nothing to do with reality.”

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Shot selection keeps holding the Big Red back

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This is Shonn Miller doing the opposite of hoisting a three. (ithacajournal.com)
This is Shonn Miller doing the opposite of hoisting a three. (ithacajournal.com)

We are a little more than halfway through the Ivy slate and Cornell is just as up as it is down.  12-12 on the season and 4-4 in conference.   Satisfied?  Disappointed?  I don’t think you’ll find a Big Red fan in too much anguish. To suffer over a team bouncing back from its lowest win total in school history and fewest wins in league play since the 1970-71 campaign would be unreasonable, but who said sports fans have to be reasonable?  We’re a fickle group, easily frustrated and often disillusioned.

This is why when a team picked to finish dead last finds itself in the top half of the standings past the midway point of play, we can’t help but ask ourselves, why not more?

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On the Vine – Feb. 18

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Check out our archive of the latest On the Vine podcast, in which Kristyn Brundidge of WKCR Sports and Ashley Wu of the Yale Daily News join Peter Andrews & Mike Tony to cover the latest Ivy action. Segments include reflections on Harvard’s championship pedigree, Yale’s success at Jadwin and predictions on who will prevail in this weekend’s matchups:

A letter to Grace Calhoun

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Car RadioDear Dr. Calhoun,

I have seen a lot of Penn Basketball over my lifetime. Thus I must say Dave Zeitlin’s great piece in the Pennsylvania Gazette about the 2005 Penn-Princeton game, filled me with much wistful melancholy.

First, a confession: I was more than 100 miles away from the Palestra on game day.  Instead of being in the stands, I was sitting in my car on that cold, rainy night in Rockaway Beach Queens near JFK Airport listening to the Princeton broadcast as it faded in and out across my car radio. Unimpeded by the tall buildings of Manhattan and beamed over a frigid New York Bay, I knew from years of experience that this secluded landmark could adequately receive a reasonable but faint signal from the New Jersey hinterlands. To get to my vantage point I took a 20-mile detour on my way home from work.  If that’s not fandom I don’t know what is.

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The case for Jerome Allen

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(Laurence Kesterson/AP)
(Laurence Kesterson/AP)

For the next three weeks, there will be no shortage of people calling for Jerome Allen to be fired and replaced as Penn basketball’s head coach. The reasoning is simple: With Allen at the helm over the past five and a half seasons, the Quakers have gone 63-99 and appear on their way to another below .500 season along with a third straight bottom half of the Ivy League finish.

But no matter the reasons his many detractors will provide for his ouster, there are definitely reasons to keep Allen aboard for next season. The following isn’t an opinion piece advocating for Allen but simply lays out the main factors Athletic Director Grace Calhoun will have to look into before making her final decision after the season.

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Yale will need help in the Ivy title race

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Sure it was a strange game, but Yale survived and beat Princeton by a healthy margin on the road. They easily dismantled Penn the night before.
Harvard had more than trouble at home with Columbia on Friday night and was behind Cornell at the half on Saturday.
If the Ivies were decided by margin of victories, Yale would win the crown in March. Harvard has struggled with Columbia, Princeton and Brown. Yale has gone through its Ivy schedule with relative ease.
Notwithstanding Yale’s win last year at Harvard, the Crimson represent a bad matchup for the Bulldogs. The Crimson are good at locking down Justin Sears, rebound better than Yale and invariably win the point guard battle.
So what is the point? Simple: Yale will need some help to win the Ivies. That help should have come in the form of Brown in Providence, but Harvard came home there with an unlikely win.

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Six seconds of glory for Columbia’s Jeff Coby

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Jeff Coby's glory lasted a precious six seconds at Lavietes Pavilion this weekend.
Jeff Coby’s glory lasted a precious six seconds at Lavietes Pavilion this weekend.

For six beautiful seconds, it was the biggest shot of Jeff Coby’s life.

The sophomore forward from Florida doesn’t have the traditional build of a three-point shooter. He’s 6-foot-9, a prototypical power forward who attempted just three shots from long-range his freshman season. As most Kyle Smith players are required to do, Coby added a three-point shot during the offseason, hitting a respectable 10 of 32 so far during this campaign.

None, though, were quite as important as that 10th shot. In the sauna that is Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, the 10th shot arced through the air after a brilliant feed from Maodo Lo found Coby all by himself, the clock running down, and the Lions needing a three to complete a brilliant second half comeback against a Harvard team that led by 17 at halftime.

It went in. The Columbia corner of the gym exploded. For six seconds, Coby was the hero.

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