Ivy League

It’s déjà vu all over again on women’s side as Ivy Madness kicks off in New York City

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The Ivy League Tournament kicks off on Friday night at Levien Gym with an exciting slate of semifinal games in the women’s competition.

The bracket this year has a familiar look as the same four teams from last year’s tournament will face off against each other in this year’s edition of Ivy Madness.  

The No. 1 Princeton Tigers, co-champions during the regular season, will take on the No. 4 Penn Quakers, while the No. 2 and co-champion Columbia Lions will seek to avenge a disappointing loss in last year’s semifinal against the No. 3 Harvard Crimson.  

Let’s take a closer look at each of these semifinal matchups:

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LISTEN: Tiger Takeaways from Princeton men’s basketball’s win at Penn to clinch Ivy title

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Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark shares his thoughts on a 105-83 win for Princeton (24-3, 12-2 Ivy) at Penn (11-18, 3-11) Saturday that clinched the Tigers an outright Ivy League championship:

Columbia women’s basketball storms past Cornell to capture second straight regular season Ivy League title

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After needing overtime to beat Cornell and capture its first-ever Ivy League regular season championship last March, the Columbia women used a dominant second half to crush the Big Red, 82-46, and secure its second straight Ancient Eight title Saturday at Newman Arena.

The Lions (22-5, 13-1 Ivy), winners of 10 straight for the second time this season and 20 of their last 21, now head home to Morningside Heights, where they will host Ivy Madness on March 15-17.

“This was a really important moment for us, not just to win this game, but to put an exclamation point on our regular conference season and head into the Ivy League Tournament with some confidence,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith told ESPN+ immediately following the game.

Cornell (7-19, 1-13), meanwhile, completed its season with an eight-game losing streak and ended up tied for seventh in league play. 

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Q&A with Columbia men’s basketball legend Jonathan Schiller

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chiller (Boies Schiller Flexner)

Jonathan Schiller was a three-year letterwinner for Columbia men’s basketball and was a member of the legendary 1967-68 Columbia team. He was inducted into the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006 and named a Legend of Ivy Basketball in 2017. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. Ivy Hoops Online recently sat down with him: 

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Why the Ivy League isn’t getting fair NCAA Tournament consideration

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Princeton coach Mitch Henderson was asked after the Tigers’ 73-62 win over Yale Saturday night by Asbury Park Press college basketball writer Jerry Carino what it says about the NCAA’s system for selecting NCAA Tournament teams that there’s no hope for an at-large Ivy League bid.

“These guys signed up knowing we’ve got to win the league and we’ve got to win the [Ivy League] Tournament,” Henderson said.

Perhaps Henderson was trying to be politically correct or keep his team’s focus on winning the Ivy tourney. But the discussion about a two-bid Ivy is far from closed.

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Breaking down the NLRB decision finding Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees

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A National Labor Relations Board director ordered a union election for 15 Dartmouth men’s basketball players Monday in a ruling that found the players are employees of the university.

The result could be the first labor union for NCAA athletes.

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Yes, Virginia, there is a two-bid Ivy – but only for Princeton women’s basketball

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Two weeks ago, Joe Lunardi of ESPN wrote that the Princeton men’s basketball team was on track to become the first team in history to earn a second Ivy League bid to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.  

“Conceivably, the Tigers could be 27-1 or thereabouts heading into the Ivy League championship game on Selection Sunday,” Lunardi wrote. “What would the committee do if Princeton drops that last game? Could the Ivy League really be a two-bid league? The answer from this seat is clearly ‘yes.’ And the uniqueness of it all is worth watching and even rooting for.”

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Be thankful for Ivy League basketball

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It’s Thanksgiving, and our cups runneth over with sumptuous Ivy hoops results.  

Last Monday, the Penn men’s team gobbled up a nationally ranked Villanova team at the Palestra.  A day earlier, the Princeton women’s team visited Middle Tennessee State, the defending Conference USA champions, and pulled the rug on the Blue Raiders’ 49-game home court winning streak.  Five days later, the Tigers came within a whisker of upsetting No. 3 UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.  

Last Saturday, the Columbia men, picked to finish last in the Ivy League, toppled Temple, 78-73, in an upset that virtually no one even seemed to notice.

But wait, there’s more.  The Brown women’s team, picked to finish sixth in the Ivy League this season, lowered the boom on Providence and Georgetown in back-to-back games.  The Bears may not win the Ivy crown, but apparently they are contenders in the Big East.  

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Ancient Nine: Men’s game No. 3

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Welcome back to Ancient Nine! You probably know the deal by now: fill in each square with a player from the corresponding team who fits that category. For example, if the row was Yale and the column was Ivy Player of the Year, “Paul Atkinson” or “Miye Oni” would each be a correct answer.

You can play in your head or visit this Google sheet to fill in answers directly (click File -> Make a Copy to get an editable version). Here’s today’s grid, featuring two new teams and two new categories:

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Not just nitpicking over NIT-picking

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Dan Gavitt is NCAA senior vice president of basketball and NIT board chair. (MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference)

Editor’s note: Dan Gavitt is the son of the great Dave Gavitt, the driving force behind the creation of the Big East. The younger Gavitt is NIT board chair and NCAA senior vice president of basketball, and he has backed a new NIT policy which eliminates the automatic bid for mid-major conference champions who do not win their conference tournaments.

Dear Dan:

What would your father say?

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