With the season two weeks old, here’s a first check on the 2023-24 Ivy stars who transferred prior to their graduation. This year, the student-athletes are all from the men’s side, but growing amounts of NIL money, more relaxed transfer rules and the lack of scholarships in the Ancient Eight should eventually (sadly) expand this list to the women’s division in the near future.
Over the opening few weeks, Kalu Anya, Malik Mack and Danny Wolf have continued their strong play from last year, while Chisom Okpara and Tyler Perkins are seeing reduced roles with their new teams.
We’ll take another look in a few weeks to see how everyone’s doing:
United States District of Connecticut Judge Alvin Thompson, a Princeton and Yale Law School graduate, handed a significant victory to the Ivy League Thursday.
Thompson granted an Ivy League motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two former Brown basketball players alleges that the Ivy League not offering athletic scholarships violates the Sherman Antitrust Act by price-fixing, raising the net price of education that Ivy athletes pay and suppressing compensation for the athletic services they provide Ivy schools.
Excited to announce my commitment to the admissions process at the University of Pennsylvania! Special thanks to Coach Donahue and the entire staff! Beyond grateful for this opportunity. pic.twitter.com/cTHoPjiw9f
The great Peter King, dean of football writers in America, retired earlier this year. I would put King — the longtime Sports Illustrated columnist and reporter — right up there with Lawrence Taylor, my father and Steve Sabol among the people who helped spark my lifelong love affair (obsession?) with sports.
In honor of King, I have a few more thoughts than usual on Penn’s position in the Ivy League landscape — and college basketball at large — after it picked up a high-upside transfer in the form of ex-Drake guard Ethan Roberts, a sophomore, last week.
Penn made its first transfer portal addition of the 2024 offseason when ex-Mercer guard Michael Zanoni revealed Monday that he had committed to the Quakers.
Zanoni, a sophomore, missed most of the 2023-24 season with a fractured foot and received a medical redshirt. He entered the portal with three years of eligibility remaining. In his 2022-23 freshman campaign, Zanoni appeared in all 33 of the Bears’ games, making 13 starts. He shot 35.6% from deep for the season on 104 attempts, averaging 6.2 points per game.
There’s a lot to like about Zanoni’s game and the broader implications of his decision to come to Penn, such as how …
New transfer portal occupant Tyler Perkins averaged 13.7 points and 5.3 rebounds in 29.8 minutes per game as a freshman in 2023-24. (Penn Athletics)
Penn’s offseason got off to a depressing start on Monday when standout freshman guard Tyler Perkins entered the transfer portal.
With the caveat that I possess no inside knowledge, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Georgetown fans who have been salivating over the Lorton, Va. native since the summer of 2023 finally got their wish.
The Quakers have now lost their best returning player for two consecutive offseasons. At least Perkins ripped the band-aid off early, hopping into the portal on the first day of its 45-day window. Jordan Dingle entered the portal more than a month later in 2023.
Much of this analysis could be rendered obsolete by the time the portal closes, but here’s a first stab at what Perkins’ departure means in the grand scheme of things for both the Quakers and Ivy League at large:
Kino Lilly Jr. and the rest of the Brown starters get ready to take on No. 1 Yale in Sunday’s Ivy League Tournament final. (Photo: Rob Browne)
NEW YORK – With 27 seconds to go and a 60-54 lead, Brown appeared destined to punch its first NCAA Tournament ticket since 1986.
But Yale finished the game on an 8-1 run, punctuated by a short jumper by senior forward Matt Knowling at the buzzer, to end Brown’s season and claim the Bulldogs’ third Ivy League Tournament championship since the tourney was installed for the 2016-17 season.
While the future is bright for a team that returns its entire starting lineup in 2024-25, it doesn’t remove the pain felt by the coaches, players and fans.
“Obviously, there is a lot in front of our people, but not this team, so that’s really hard,” the Brown alum and 12th-year head coach told the media immediately following the hard-fought battle “I felt like I let them down in the last minute of the game.”
The Madness lived up to its name on Saturday, with No. 4 Brown pulling off the biggest upset in Ivy League Tournament history. (Photo: Rob Browne)
NEW YORK – In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly.”
Two-plus hours into Saturday’s Ivy League Tournament tripleheader, the No. 4 Brown Bears shocked No. 1 Princeton, sending the regular-season champions on their way back to Old Nassau and a probable date with the NIT. The Tigers’ faithful, which certainly left the afternoon’s game with great disappointment, could take comfort in the fifth straight Ivy tournament championship for the women’s team.
Some thoughts from a long and exciting day at Levien Gymnasium.
Princeton celebrates securing a fifth consecutive Ivy League Tournament crown at Levien Gym Saturday. (Photo by Steve Silverman)
Two down, one to go.
Princeton women’s basketball added an exclamation point to its already triumphant Ivy League season Saturday by soundly defeating the Columbia Lions, 75-58, for its fifth consecutive Ivy League Tournament championship.
The Columbia women prepare to battle Princeton in the Ivy League Tournament championship on Saturday evening. (Photo: Rob Browne)
NEW YORK – Even though the Columbia women were the No. 2 seed for the 2024 Ivy League Tournament, the Lions felt everything was going their way as team continued its quest for its first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Unfortunately for the team and Light Blue fans, No. 1 Princeton used a strong inside game to cruise to a 75-58 victory and secure its five straight conference postseason title.
Columbia coach Megan Griffith’s crew graduated seven players, including three starters, from last year’s Ivy League regular season champion, and still captured its second straight league title.
While last year’s squad buckled just enough from the end-of-season pressure, including an overtime win to close out the season against lower division Cornell and an overtime loss to Harvard in the Ivy tournament semifinal, to lose out on a chance to get to March Madness, this team seemed to embrace the challenges.
First, Columbia beat Princeton at Levien by two on Feb. 24. Second, the Lions ran Cornell out of Newman Arena by 36 on the last day of the season. Third, they took down Harvard in a two-point win, which was not as close as the score would indicate, in the Ivy semifinal.
After the Tigers were taken to the wire by No. 4 Penn in Friday’s first semifinal, Columbia, buoyed by its passionate fanbase and home surroundings, appeared to be the slight favorite in the battle for Ancient Eight supremacy.
