Princeton women and men riding high going into stretch runs after downing Dartmouth

Senior guard Abby Meyers recorded 19 points and eight rebounds in just 27 minutes in Princeton’s 70-48 win at Dartmouth Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

The weekend’s basketball produced no interesting storylines for either the women or men’s teams at Princeton.

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Missing Henderson but not shooting touch, Princeton men bounce back at Columbia

What promised to be a chaotic weekend for the Tigers got off to a troubling start when the head coach had to leave the team after a failed COVID-19 test.

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Five thoughts about the Ivy League men’s race

Yale is well-positioned to live up to the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll’s prediction that it would finish atop the league standings, in no small part due to Ivy scoring leader Azar Swain. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

As we near the halfway mark of the 2022 Ivy League season, here are five thoughts about the state of the race for the men’s league title:

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Ivy Hoops Online’s holiday wishes for 2022 Ivy basketball season

This holiday season, Ivy Hoops Online contributors weigh in on what their holiday wishes are for the 2022 Ivy League basketball campaign. Coming off a season that wasn’t, hopes for a safe, full slate of games come first, but our contributors’ wish list is much longer than that. Happy holidays and warm wishes to all!

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Harvard women’s coach Kathy Delaney-Smith to retire at end of upcoming 40th season

Kathy Delaney-Smith will retire after the 2021-22 season, her 40th at the Crimson’s helm. Delaney-Smith is the all-time winningest head coach of any sport in Ivy League history. (Harvard Athletics) 

One of the most successful eras in Ivy sports history is coming to an end.

Harvard Athletics announced Friday that Crimson women’s coach Kathy Delaney-Smith will retire at the end of the 2021-22 season, her 40th at Harvard’s helm.

“I have spent 40 incredible years doing the job that I love,” Delaney-Smith told Harvard Athletics. “I have always believed that sports is the greatest classroom for life. It has been my great honor to build the basketball program at Harvard and to mentor, coach, and work alongside such incredible people. I am so very proud of our players and alumnae. Their impact on me has been immeasurable.”

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If there would have been a 2020-21 Ivy hoops season, what would have happened?

Now’s the time of year that an Ivy League hoops slate would be revving up, and since there’s no Ivy hoops action to come this spring, here’s an IHO contributors’ roundtable pondering what might have happened in the 2020-21 Ivy season on the men’s and or women’s sides if there had been one instead of an exodus of much of the league’s top talent via the transfer portal. Behold the one-year Ivy hoops universes we created:

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Thoughts on the Ivy League canceling the 2020-21 basketball season

A crowd of 1,636 gathered at Lavietes Pavilion on March 6 to watch Harvard host Brown. Four days later, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournaments to guard against COVID-19 transmission, a move many in college basketball considered unthinkable at the time. | Erica Denhoff

The Ivy League announced Thursday evening that winter sports for the 2020-21 season were cancelled in an effort to mitigate transmission of COVID-19. Was eliminating Ivy hoops the right move? Our contributors offer their thoughts:

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Could an Ivy hoops bubble be considered for ’20-’21?

With a growing number of colleges cancelling in-person plans as well as fall sports in response to COVID-19, questions will soon shift to the status of winter sports. Since experts believe there will be a significant increase in cases and deaths as flu season arrives and activities moving indoors amid colder weather, it is difficult to image a return to a normal world, much less a normal sports world, by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

If there is no large-scale vaccine available or significant improvement in testing as previewed by Yale’s SalivaDirect COVID-19 test, winter teams, including men’s and women’s basketball, will not be permitted to play their traditional 4 1/2 month schedules (or 2 1/2 months in the Ivy League’s case).

Could something shorter and less traditional be done to allow college hoops to be played this winter?

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Ivy League Tournaments slated to stay at Lavietes Pavilion in 2021

The Ivy League isn’t skipping Harvard.

The league announced on Twitter Thursday that its men’s and women’s conference tournaments will take place at Lavietes Pavilion March 12-14, 2021. The tournaments would have been held in March had they not been canceled as a precaution against the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

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Inside Ivy Hoops 3-13-20

In the season finale episode of Inside Ivy Hoops recorded Thursday night, Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony is joined by IHO writer Rob Browne, and the two reflect on the Ivy League’s decision to cancel the men’s and women’s basketball conference tournaments and the remarkable fallout since, plus reaction to the league’s All-Ivy selections:

My apologies for inexplicably leaving out the great Ray Curren from the IHO contributor acknowledgments. Ray did a characteristically fantastic job covering the Dartmouth men this season for IHO.