Yale men hang on to best Brown at home, 81-78

Yale sophomore guard Bez Mbeng drew the assignment of guarding Kino Lilly Jr. in the Bulldogs’ win over Brown Monday. Lilly scored 28 points in 35 minutes, but Mbeng often draws the toughest assignment on defense. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Yale men’s basketball needed a strong performance from a shot-maker against Brown.

Junior guard August Mahoney provided that spark with a team-high 20 points on 7-for-9 shooting, including 4-for-5 shooting from deep, helping will Yale to an 81-78 victory over Brown in a near must-win situation at John J. Lee Amphitheater Monday.

“I know my shots are going to fall,” Mahoney said.

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Brown men top Princeton off Lilly game-winner

Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark on how a classic unfolded between the Princeton and Brown men at the Pizzitola Sports Center Saturday – setting up the game-winning shot from Kino Lilly Jr. and resulting in the Tigers’ first Ivy loss:

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 76-68 win at Brown

Junior guard Clark Slajchert exploded for 31 points on 11-for-18 shooting in Penn’s 76-68 win at Brown Monday evening. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn started off Ivy League play on the right foot Monday, gritting out a 76-68 road win over Brown in Providence.

After a sluggish offensive start, the Quakers (8-7, 1-0 Ivy) leaned on their elite backcourt duo of juniors Clark Slajchert and Jordan Dingle, who combined to score 51 points.

Dingle put the Bears (7-7, 0-1) to bed with about 80 seconds left after he collected a lob pass from forward Nick Spinoso through a triple team and finished through contact at the rim to push Penn’s lead to 70-63. Though Dingle didn’t convert his and-one free throw opportunity, the damage had been done.

Here are the biggest Quakeaways from Penn’s fourth consecutive victory over Brown:

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Penn women trounce Brown in Ivy opener

The question still unanswered at the start of Monday afternoon: whether Brown or Penn belonged in the top tier of Ivy women’s basketball.
Penn provided an emphatic answer quickly, leading from start to finish and scoring 19 straight points in the 25-4 first quarter of a 74-53 home victory, its seventh win in a row.
It’s not just that the Quakers were better than the Brown Bears for the 21st straight time. It’s that they played a commanding game, inside and out, that will challenge anyone else in the Ivies.

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Ivy men’s hoops observations as league play approaches

With conference play in the 2022-23 Ivy League men’s basketball season fast approaching, let’s take a look back at the nonconference results for each team and examine each program – listed by season winning percentage:

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Inside Ivy Hoops – Dec. 29, 2022

Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony is joined by IHO writer Rob Browne to discuss the highlights of Ivy men’s and women’s basketball through this season’s nonconference slate, what to watch for as league play starts this weekend and much more:

Ivy League must shake up conference scheduling to attract student support, reduce competitive imbalance

Members of a Brown Athletics-reported crowd of 525 watched as Brown men’s basketball took on Yale at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Jan. 17, 2022, nine days before Brown’s second-semester classes began. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

This Ivy League men’s basketball season, Brown men’s basketball will open its conference season against Penn.

Brown and the Red & Blue have formed a bit of a rivalry in recent years, facing off in key battles in the last three seasons vying for a berth in the Ivy League Tournament.

Brown has come up just a bit short in these moments and is yet to win an Ivy tourney bid. The Penn Band adds a raucous element on the road.

But here’s a group who won’t be in Providence for the matchup: the vast majority of Brown students.

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Brown men defeat Bryant and Hartford to extend winning streak to four

Senior guard Paxson Wojcik (32) has hit three treys in each of Brown’s last two games – both wins – going 6-for-14 from three-point range and scoring 37 points at Bryant and Hartford. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Despite missing two of their starting five for this weekend’s games, the Brown men came away with two convincing road victories against Bryant and Hartford.

The Bears (5-4), winners of four straight wins and five of their last six, are playing their best basketball of the year as they head into the last and hardest stretch of their nonconference schedule.

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2022-23 IHO Men’s Preseason Poll

Only five points separated the top three teams in the Ivy League Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll, and our final tabulation was even tighter. Just three points separated the team atop IHO contributors’ preseason poll.

Yale gets the slight nod here, with our contributors trusting James Jones to lead the Bulldogs to their fifth Ivy League title in an eight-season span in a bid to represent the conference in the NCAA Tournament for a third straight time. Penn, the Ivy League preseason poll’s top team above Princeton by a single point, also finished a single point above Princeton in our standings. Our contributors saw potential for success in a roster that returns most of the key players from last year’s squad that placed third in the Ivy standings. We’ve got Princeton pegged to finish third, aided in their quest to repeat as Ivy League champions by returning 2021-22 Ivy Player of the Year Tosan Evbuomwan but losing significant backcourt production from last year’s conference title team.

Harvard was the clear No. 4 finisher in our poll, a showing that would improve upon the disappointing sixth-place result that locked the Crimson out of the Ivy League Tournament on its home floor last season. We have Cornell ranked slightly ahead of Brown as the Big Red look to build on last season’s overachieving Ivy League Tournament berth and the Bears look to bounce back from an underachieving sixth-place finish (tied with Harvard) a season ago. Columbia and Dartmouth tied in our voting tally at the bottom of the standings as both programs look to secure their first Ivy League Tournament appearances.

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2022-23 IHO Women’s Preseason Poll

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.

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