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Our latest Ivy hoops roundup features the 2019-20 Academic All-Ivies and a whole lot of Ivy graduate transfers on the move:
Academic All-Ivies announced
The Ivy League released its winter edition of the 2019-20 Academic All-Ivy list Thursday. The basketball honorees were:
In a huge boost for Dartmouth, reports emerged Monday that Brendan Barry will return to the Big Green rather than play elsewhere as a graduate transfer.
Jeff Borzello of ESPN reported that Barry would take off the final quarter of this academic year and graduate next spring, allowing him to play a fourth year for the Big Green, who missed his ball distribution and three-point shooting last season.
As a junior in 2018-19, Barry led the Ivy League in three-point percentage (44.1%), assist-to-turnover ratio (2.2) and minutes per game (35.5), averaging 13 points and 3.2 assists per contest.
Without Barry in 2019-20, the Big Green’s three-point shooting percentage plummeted to 31.1% (285th nationally) from 35.6% (105th nationally) the season before.
On Saturday, it will be exactly five years since one of the toughest nights in recent Yale men’s basketball history. Leading by five points in the final minute against a Dartmouth team that was playing just for pride, the Bulldogs lost in perhaps the most excruciating manner possible: a buzzer-beater by Gabas Maldunas off an inbound play. The Ivy League title trophy – set to be awarded to Yale – was quickly covered and hustled out of Leede Arena and Hanover.
After losing a tiebreaker to Harvard the following week, their NCAA Tournament drought reached 53 years, and – having graduated four contributing seniors – who knew when they would get another chance the way Harvard and Princeton were trending?
ITHACA, N.Y. – The Dartmouth Big Green couldn’t be stopped offensively at Newman Arena Friday night en route to an 82-70 win over Cornell that marked the visitors’ fourth win in five games.
“We didn’t play any defense,” said Cornell coach Brian Earl. “They made a lot of shots, shot it really well. We just couldn’t find a way.”
The Big Green (11-15, 4-7 Ivy) took an eight-point lead into the locker room at the half. They were led by senior forward Ian Sistare, who scored 14 in the half. He had a career-high 25 points on the evening off 8-for-10 shooting.
The typically wild weekend road trip to Boston and Hanover is over, and the Tigers survived with one of their goals, a berth in Ivy Madness, well within their grasp. We may well look back on this trip as the time Jaelin Llewellyn’s total game was on display at an absolutely crucial juncture for his team. Recognizing the need to step up in the absence of Ryan Schwieger, Llewellyn courageously embraced the challenge and, to put it mildly, delivered.
On Friday at Harvard, Llewellyn almost single-handedly kept the Tigers in the game to the last seconds, leading the scoring with 22 points. If he has had a weakness this season, it has been his inefficiency from deep. He takes more three-pointers than anyone else, but came into the weekend converting an unacceptable 25%. His 21 points on Saturday night gave the Tigers the spark they needed, and included 5-for-7 from beyond the arc. The final score, 65-62 Princeton, tells very little about the game.
Penn’s 66-59 loss at Dartmouth Friday night managed to cobble together the shortcomings jeopardizing a fourth Ivy League Tournament appearance for the Red & Blue in as many years.
Cornell suffered its second 22-point loss in as many days, falling to Dartmouth, 75-53, in Hanover Saturday night. Even worse for the Big Red, Jimmy Boeheim went down with an injury just six minutes in and never returned.
The junior made the first four for the visitors, then got tangled up on a foul call under the basket on defense. He landed funny and had difficulty walking. Boeheim hobbled on one foot to the trainer station where he was looked at. He finally returned to the bench, taped with ice, and stayed there for the remainder of the game.
In the latest episode of Inside Ivy Hoops, Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony is joined by IHO writer George Clark, and the two reflect on the first weekend of Ivy back-to-backs and look ahead to another weekend of pivotal women’s and men’s conference action.
Here is the link to vote for Dartmouth’s James Foye to receive the Senior CLASS Award, as mentioned toward the end of the podcast.