Home of the Roundball Poets
Matt Elkin joined the Yale men’s basketball staff in Oct. 2020 as director of basketball operations after serving as an assistant coach at the Windward School in Los Angeles. Ivy Hoops Online caught up with Elkin Tuesday:
Ivy Hoops Online writer George “Toothless Tiger” Clark reports from Storrs on a comeback to remember from the Princeton women that fell just short in a 69-64 loss at No. 6 UConn in a homecoming for Huskies alumna Carla Berube:
What do Hofstra, Colgate, Siena, Loyola Chicago, UMass and Vermont all have in common? They are all solid mid-major men’s basketball programs and willing to travel to the home gym of a top Ivy team.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal on the surface, but it is.
Consider Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights have one natural rival in their 153 years of playing college sports. Not Penn State. Not Syracuse.
Princeton.
If you are a college basketball fan, it’s likely you’ve heard of Connecticut Huskies freshman phenom guard Caroline Ducharme.
Ducharme inked a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) deal with ISlide, a sandal company, for a sandal featuring the quote, “When it gets hard, think about why you started.”
“My ‘why’ is my family, specifically my older sister Ashley,” Ducharme wrote on Instagram. “It’s hard to describe the impact that she’s had on me as a player and who I am as a person. There’s no one who inspires, challenges, and supports me more than she does. Will always be my favorite teammate.”
Her sister is Brown Bears senior forward Ashley Ducharme. Ashley may be the lesser-known Ducharme sister, but she is impressive in her own right.
You know all the top coaches in the women’s game. Actually, you know them all by their first names.
Geno. Kim. Tara. Dawn. Brenda. And the list goes on. Every fan of the game would come up with those names quickly.
But most would struggle to come up with another. And it belongs. Maybe not in November 2021. But it will by March 2022.
The name is Carla. Yes, Princeton’s Carla Berube.
Shonn Miller is headed to the Huskies.
Since the Ivy League prohibits the participation of graduate students and Miller, missed the 2013-14 season following shoulder surgery, the 2014-15 first-team All-Ivy senior forward still has a year of eligibility to spend at a non-Ivy school. Now he’ll spend it at four-time national champion UConn, where he is instantly eligible.
“It just felt like home,” Miller told ESPN.com. “I got along with all the players and everybody in general just welcomed me like I was a part of their family.”
Miller was a boss at both ends of the floor last season, notching 16.8 points, 8.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals in 31.3 minutes per contest. He finished second in the Ivy League in scoring, rebounding and free throw percentage, as well as fourth in both blocks and three-pointers made, and eighth in steals. There’s really not a lot that Miller can’t do, and his absence in 2013-14 hit Cornell like a ton of bricks, with the Big Red going 2-26 without him.