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Yale doesn’t rebuild. It reloads.
It is trite but true. Yale and Princeton have been the premier Ivy programs since 2015. But it looks as if Yale will hold that mantle this year, as it has the last two regular seasons.
Incoming frosh will be vastly better than their recruiting rankings, and sophomores will become contributors and then ultimately stars. It always happens for Yale.
Ivy basketball is at a crossroads.
There is no other way to say it. Could the Ivy be Division III in five years? Although it’s highly unlikely, it’s not impossible like it was 10 years ago.
The triple whammy of no sanctioned NIL, opting out of revenue share and no graduate transfer eligibility has cast a shroud over the league – one which is perceptible on the recruiting trails and on the court.
After a series of player and coach interviews, it is clear that there is no consensus on the direction of Ivy athletics but a clear consensus that the Ivy presidents and some athletic directors are clueless about the current landscape of college athletics.
Call it ignorance. Call it arrogance. It is both and more.
Brown men’s basketball has not danced since 1986, but head coach Mike Martin is like a kid in a candy store when he talks about that goal. With year 14 fast approaching for Martin, it’s the furious pursuit of March magic that keeps his feet planted in Providence.
“The administration here, president [Christina] Paxson and [vice president for athletics and recreation] Grace Calhoun have been incredibly supportive in trying to help grow our program,” Martin told Ivy Hoops Online. “This is the job I’ve always wanted.”
The Yale women’s basketball team took a cultural and basketball trip to Barcelona, Spain and Nice, France last week.
The Bulldogs likely were more successful with the cultural activities, dropping both games played.
Caden Pierce announced on Tuesday that he will step away from basketball during his senior year at Princeton. The two-time All-Ivy League forward told ESPN that he plans to graduate next May from Princeton and enter the transfer portal to play his final year of NCAA eligibility as a graduate student.
Pierce’s withdrawal from the Princeton men’s basketball team is the latest and perhaps heaviest blow to hit Mitch Henderson’s squad since the 2024-25 season ended with a heartbreaking loss to Yale in the semifinals of the 2025 Ivy League Tournament.
The offseason started ominously for Princeton with the news breaking in late March that two key assistant coaches, Brett MacConnell and Lawrence Rowley, would not return to Mitch Henderson’s coaching staff for the 2025-26 season.
There was no obvious explanation for the coaching staff shakeup, other than Princeton’s leadership perhaps deciding that something needed to change after the Tigers underperformed expectations during the 2024-25 season.
A wave of player defections then descended on Old Nassau.
At the Spokane Hoopfest, home to the world’s largest 3X3 basketball tournament, seven former Ivy League women’s basketball stars will lace up their sneakers this weekend alongside 25 other elite hoopsters from across the globe in a center court showcase staged by the 3X3 Basketball Association.
Blake Dietrick and Carlie Littlefield (Princeton), Harmoni Turner and McKenzie Forbes (Harvard), Camille Zimmerman and Hannah Pratt (Columbia), and Roxy Barahman (Yale) have signed up to play on the 3XBA tour this summer, with the Spokane Hoopfest as the opening stop.
An eighth Ivy alumnus, Kaitlyn Chen, had signed up to play in Spokane as well, but the former Princeton star and recently crowned national champion at UConn pulled out of the 3XBA tour after she was offered a contract to play for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries.
In April, the Valkyries selected Chen early in the third round of the WNBA Draft, only to waive her a few weeks later during training camp. Ditto for Harvard’s Turner, who was also drafted in the third round by the Las Vegas Aces and later waived.
Other WNBA Draft picks failed to earn roster spots this spring as well, and many of those players have now found an opportunity to continue developing their professional basketball careers by signing on to join the 3XBA tour.
The 3xBA describes itself as “the premier professional women’s FIBA 3X3 tour and youth development pipeline in the United States.” Part of its mission is to provide an outlet for standouts like Chen and Turner, who didn’t quite make the cut in their first attempts, to land a roster spot in the WNBA.
“The idea, is that young players, the bubble players, who maybe are the 13th and 14th kids who would make a WNBA roster if we had that many spots, can come and play 3X3 and potentially end up on a USA national team or make money, have a livelihood during the summer, and then go and play their five-on-five season overseas if they want to, in the fall and spring,” Blake Dietrick told Ivy Hoops Online.
The golden era of Yale men’s basketball has taken place over the last decade under the tutelage of longtime head coach James Jones.
Playing no small part in such excellence has been associate head coach Justin Simon, who was named the head coach at Division III Carnegie Mellon University Wednesday.
“I am really fortunate to have been surrounded by so many extraordinary people during my tenure at Yale,” Simon said.
Penn basketball looks a lot different than it did when I last wrote about the program roughly three weeks ago after Fran McCaffery’s hire as head coach became official.
Where to begin? The new stable of assistant coaches? The official return of leading scorer Ethan Roberts? The ex-five-star recruit and power conference transfer who just committed? The new 7-footer coming over from the pros in Norway?
There’s an unmistakable air of optimism around the program right now, and with good reason. In the spirit of the estimable football writer Peter King, here’s “five things I think I think” about the Quakers at this juncture of the offseason:
Dear Ivy League presidents:
I have tried to warn you for almost three years.
The warning signs were there. The arrogance was pervasive. The lack of understanding of the current landscape of college athletics on your part was mind-boggling.
The Xaivian Lee era at Princeton appears to be over.
According to a report posted today by ESPN, the First-Team All-Ivy junior guard has entered the transfer portal. The report states that Lee will also enter the NBA Draft while simultaneously keeping his options open to transfer to another program for his final year of collegiate eligibility.
A year ago, Lee similarly tested the NBA Draft waters before returning to Princeton for his junior year.
Lee’s likely departure from Princeton, while not entirely unexpected, is the latest development in what already is shaping up to be a tumultuous offseason for the Princeton men’s basketball program.