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The Ivy League is doing something unusual – at least for the Ivy League.
Reports emerged Thursday that the league will allow seniors to compete as graduate students due to COVID-19 for the 2021-22 academic year, a reversal of longstanding and unique Ivy policy of not allowing athletic redshirts or graduate students to play varsity sports.
As this Ivy non-season progresses, we thought it’d make sense for us to do an Ivy Hoops Online contributors’ roundtable looking ahead to next season, assuming there is one:
Now’s the time of year that an Ivy League hoops slate would be revving up, and since there’s no Ivy hoops action to come this spring, here’s an IHO contributors’ roundtable pondering what might have happened in the 2020-21 Ivy season on the men’s and or women’s sides if there had been one instead of an exodus of much of the league’s top talent via the transfer portal. Behold the one-year Ivy hoops universes we created:
Harvard’s Bush heads west, Haskett goes south
Two of the first three Harvard seniors to enter the transfer portal have made their graduate school decisions in November.
Jadyn Bush will be heading out west to join the University of California, Berkeley, and Rio Haskett will suit up for Hampton University. There is still no reported decision from Danilo Djuricic.
After Penn parent Philip Esformes had his 20-year prison sentence for Medicare fraud commuted by fellow Quaker parent President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Ivy Hoops Online looks back at the people and departments, directly and indirectly, involved in the bribery scandal in which Esformes got former Penn men’s basketball head coach Jerome Allen to place his son, Morris Esformes, on the recruited athletes list for the fall of 2015.
The tail end of Tuesday afternoon’s statement on Executive Grants of Clemency from outgoing President Donald Trump brought news that caught the interest of Ivy hoops fans. Philip Esformes, the father who bribed former Penn men’s basketball coach Jerome Allen to get his son, Morris, onto the recruited athlete list for the fall of 2015, had his 20-year prison sentence for Medicare insurance fraud commuted.
According to the statement, the commutation was supported by two former attorneys general, Edwin Meese (1985-1988) and Michael Mukasey (2007-2009). Meese was also joined by former attorneys general John Ashcroft (2001-2005) and Alberto Gonzalez (2005-2007), as well as Whitewater Special Counsel and former Baylor President Ken Starr, in supporting Esformes’s appeal of his conviction due to “prosecutorial misconduct related to violating attorney-client privilege.”
After a career full of magic moments for Devin Cannady during his Princeton career, he’s poised for some Magic with a capital M.
The Orlando Magic announced Friday that they signed Cannady, who averaged 14.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 40 games last season in the G League for the Long Island Nets. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Ivy League’s longstanding policy of only extending eligibility to student-athletes in their first four years of undergraduate enrollment, as expected, is prompting an increasingly long list of talented seniors becoming graduate transfers.
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Temple announced Friday that Brendan Barry has signed a financial aid agreement to attend the university after three seasons at Dartmouth.
The Big Green had to go without Barry’s standout three-point shooting and ball distribution last season , which he missed due to injury. Barry had decided earlier this year to return to the Big Green rather than play elsewhere as a graduate transfer.
A native of Fair Haven, N.J., Barry averaged 9.8 points and three assists per game in his three seasons at Dartmouth.