Andy Toole – Ivy Hoops Online

Who will be Cornell’s next head coach?

March 19, 2016 by Rob Browne

With the firing of Bill Courtney, Cornell will begin a national search for a new head men’s basketball coach. Who might be targets for the Big Red search committee? Can the past help decide the future?

Here is a list of the Cornell coaches from the last 40 years:

2010-11 through 2015-16: Bill Courtney (Graduate of Bucknell)
1st Head Coaching job

15 years as Division 1 Assistant and Associate Head Coach, including 8 seasons working under Jim Larranaga at George Mason

60-113 overall and 27-57 Ivy; No post-season appearances; Highest Ivy standing was 5th place

2000-01 through 2009-10: Steve Donahue (Ursinus)
1st Head Coaching job
12 years as college Assistant Coach, including 10 seasons working under Fran Dunphy at Penn
146-138 overall and 78-62 Ivy; 3 Ivy League titles; 3 post-season appearances, including a Sweet 16 run in 2009-10

Q&A with Robert Morris coach and former Penn guard Andy Toole

January 11, 2016November 11, 2015 by Steven Tydings

Penn basketball leads off its season this Friday against Robert Morris, a team coached by none other than former Quakers guard Andy Toole (“03). Since winning two Ivy titles as a player at Penn, Toole’s career has taken off. After time as an assistant at both Lafayette and Robert Morris, Toole took over and has already eclipsed 100 career victories at the age of 35. He also led the Colonials to an NCAA Tournament bid and a victory in the First Four.

Before his squad opens its year against the Red and Blue, Toole took some time to talk about the matchup and his time at Penn with Ivy Hoops Online. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation:

Sizing up Penn's 2015-16 schedule

December 24, 2015August 13, 2015 by Mike Tony

The Steve Donahue era is here, and it’s almost palpable with Thursday’s release of the 2015-16 Penn basketball schedule.

And it’s interesting, though not much different from past schedules. We have the obligatory homecoming trip, this time a trip home at Washington on Sat., Nov. 21 for senior center Darien Nelson-Henry and junior guard Matt Poplawski both of whom are from the Seattle area. Good for them, and good on the program for providing that Evergreen State opportunity.

What’s not so obligatory? Playing at Drexel.

That’s right, the Daskalakis Athletic Center, where Steve Bilsky forbade the Quakers from playing during his run as athletic director, excepting one 2008 matchup.

2015-16 IHO Powerless Poll

December 2, 2015March 23, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

Now that Harvard has been vanquished by North Carolina, Ivy basketball is officially over for the summer. Since no one is still playing, you could say we are all equally impotent—or are we? Thus, I give you the first annual IHO Powerless Poll. Naturally, as is my custom, I will rank teams according to how I view them from most feeble to strongest.

8. Cornell: Now that Shonn Miller is headed to some Power 5 school, the natural order of the Ivy will magically be restored and the Red can return to their rightful place at the bottom. Yes, Bill Courtney did make a nice recovery from the disaster that was the 2013-14 season, but success in Ithaca is as fleeting as the four days of summer that town is allotted each year. Look out below.

Who could/should be Penn’s next head coach?

March 12, 2015March 12, 2015 by Mike Tony

My big board for Penn’s vacant head coaching position, a mixture of what I think Penn Athletic Director Grace Calhoun’s current ranking is and what the ranking should be:

10. Louis Orr (Siena head coach 2000-01, Seton Hall head coach 2001-06, Bowling Green head coach 2007-14)

Lifetime record: 201-201 (.500)

Wanna succeed against Tommy Amaker? Hire Tommy Amaker’s successor. Louis Orr, one half of the “Bouie & Louie Show” at Syracuse in the late ‘70s, took over for Amaker at Seton Hall in 2001 when the latter left for Michigan. Orr was actually the more successful coach for the Pirates, making one NIT appearance and two NCAA appearances in five years. In 2006, he was inexplicably fired after taking the Pirates to the NCAA tournament, and they’ve never made it back since. Then again, neither has Orr, who finished 101-121 in seven years at Bowling Green. The 58-year-old Cincinnati native has no Ivy or City 6 experience, but he’s got loads of experience and would provide instant credibility on the recruiting trail, especially in New Jersey, a frequent target area for Penn recruiting. Still, he’s an outsider on nobody’s radar.

The case for Jerome Allen

February 17, 2015 by Steven Tydings

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.