Ania McNicholas

2023-24 Ivy women’s media day recap and season preview

by

With the season a few weeks away, the Ivy League hosted Women’s Basketball Media Day on Monday, the first of two media availabilities this week. The event was hosted over Zoom for media members and is available on the conference’s YouTube channel.

The preseason media poll was released last Thursday with Princeton earning all 16 first-place votes. Last year’s Ivy Tournament winner and regular season co-champions are the sixth unanimous pick in league history and the first since Penn in 2016-2017.

Read more

Ivy hoops roundup – July 1, 2023

by

As we enter the July 4th holiday weekend, we at Ivy Hoops Online wanted to round up some postseason updates:

Read more

Davis’ triple-double leads Columbia women past Dartmouth

by
Kaitlyn Davis put up a triple-double to lead Columbia to a home win over Dartmouth Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

A career-first triple-double performance from senior forward Kaitlyn Davis helped ensure Columbia never trailed in a dominant 79-50 victory against Dartmouth Saturday at Levien Gym.

The Lions (17-3, 6-1 Ivy) entered the game as one of three teams in the country to use the same starting lineup all season. That changed against Dartmouth (2-19, 0-7) as coach Megan Griffith decided to rest sophomore guard Kitty Henderson due to a minor injury. Senior guard Carly Rivera made her first start of the season.

“Going into this week not knowing if she [Kitty] was going to be in or not, we just made sure everybody understood who’s going to take those points, who’s going to take those rebounds, who’s going to take those assists,” Griffith said. “And so them understanding the total team buy-in of, one of us falls down, we all pick it up as a group.”

Read more

2022-23 IHO Women’s Preseason Poll

by

It’s still Princeton’s conference until another Ivy proves that it isn’t. Our contributors are united in believing that the Tigers will stay on top in 2022-23, with Megan Griffith’s ascendant Columbia program again placing second.

But there wasn’t consensus on how the rest of the top half of the league will fill out.

Penn could break back into the Ivy League Tournament after missing it for the first time last season, but we expect the Red & Blue to draw stiff competition from Harvard and Yale in their first years under new coaches.

Will #2bidivy happen in the league for only the second time in conference history? It very well could, and the bottom half of the conference is likely to be substantially stronger this season as Brown and Dartmouth return more experienced rosters under coaches that now have a year of Ivy play under their belts.

Read more

Penn women turn back Cornell to keep Ivy Madness hopes alive

by

Two teams that knew they had to win to have a chance at Ivy Madness played some of their best basketball of the year Wednesday, but the Penn women played a bit better than Cornell and came away with the victory in Ithaca, 70-57.

That may sound like a comfortable win for the Quakers, but it was anything but.

Read more

Columbia women outlast Cornell, 57-46, for best start to Ivy play in program history

by

After running out to a 24-point lead over the first 7:30 of the game, the Columbia women surprisingly found themselves in a battle with Cornell on Thursday night.  In a typically intense physical battle between the Empire State rivals, the Lions used the offense of Kitty Henderson and the rebounding of Kaitlyn Davis to come away with a 57-46 victory at Levien Gymnasium.

With the win, the Light Blue are 3-0 in league play (12-0 overall) for the first time in program history and remain tied with Princeton for first place.  For the Red, the defeat was their first of the year when holding an opponent to 60 points or less and they are now 1-3 in the conference (6-9 overall).

Read more

Ivy weekend preview: What to watch for now that there’s finally something to watch

by

Sunday will mark the first Ivy League conference basketball since March 7, 2020, even if two of the eight games in the opening slate (the Princeton at Harvard and Columbia at Yale men’s matchups) have been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns. Here’s what to watch for:

Read more

Cornell women prepare for Ivy League slate

by

For Dayna Smith’s Cornell squad, the start of the 2021-22 season has by no means been easy. In addition to a challenging nonconference slate, the team with just six returners from two seasons ago has battled injuries, illness and COVID-19 protocols through the first seven weeks of the new campaign.

“There’s been zero pouting, zero anger [and] lack of focus,” Smith said. “We’ve practiced with six people, we’ve practiced with seven people … The people we have with us are giving us everything they have.”

Read more

Shannon Mulroy’s buzzer-beater gives Cornell women gritty win over Albany

by

ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell junior guard Shannon Mulroy sunk a deep three-pointer over multiple defenders at the buzzer  downing the Albany Great Danes, 47-46, Wednesday for Cornell’s third victory of the season.

 

“So happy for them,” coach Dayna Smith said. “It wasn’t our best performance on the offensive end … I love the grit that they showed.”

Albany (1-2) opened the game on an 11-0 run, but Cornell (3-3) responded with an 11-0 run of its own sparked by senior forward Theresa Grace Mbanefo more than four minutes into the game. Mbanefo scored 12 points off 6-for-15 shooting with nine rebounds.

“Getting those inside shots when they collapses on us, looking for kick-outs, is really important,” Mbanefo said. “I really focus on that, making my bunnies, and hopefully I can continue to do that.”

Read more