Home of the Roundball Poets
Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark caught up with Princeton men’s coach Mitch Henderson ahead of Princeton’s Ivy League Tournament semifinal matchup with Penn. Henderson reflects on his deep connection with Pete Carril, the importance of blending old and new coming off last season’s Ivy League championship in this year’s Ivy title run, the emergence of Ivy Rookie of the Year Caden Pierce, the coaching approach to Ivy Madness and more:
Ivy League Tournament V officially started on Thursday afternoon, with the four women’s teams taking part in press conferences and shootarounds for “Live from Ivy Madness.”
This year’s edition, the first-ever tournament to take place in a suburban setting, takes place at Jadwin Gymnasium on the campus of Princeton University. While the campus is incredibly picturesque, and the athletic complex has a lot of beautiful modern buildings that fit in well with each other, the basketball arena continues to be its own unique entity.
The previous locations at Penn, Yale and Harvard had much more intimate environments, whether in the press conference room or the actual arena. This year, everything feels much larger and more spacious. I’m sure most people would see that as a positive, but I liked it more when the reporters and fans were closer to the coaches and players.
As usual, the Ivy League staff and their partners at ESPN are doing a great job getting everything organized. The campus staff are also incredibly helpful.
I can’t explain why, but there seems to be a greater security presence inside the arena than past years. There were several guards going through the media room and arena, even though there was an incredibly small crowd this afternoon. Officials have also limited access to the stairwells and have rotating staff members operating the elevator for everyone. Feels a bit odd that we aren’t allowed to press our own buttons, but I’m sure they have good reasons for doing this.
Some other observations from the day:
No. 2 Columbia (23-4, 12-2 Ivy) vs No. 3 Harvard (16-10, 9-5 Ivy), 7 p.m. or 30 minutes following 4:30 game (Princeton vs Penn), whichever is later (available on ESPN+) at Jadwin Gym
Game #1, 1/14/23: Columbia (home) over Harvard, 82-56
Game #2, 2/17/23: Columbia over Harvard (home), 75-70
No. 1 Princeton (21-5, 12-2 Ivy) vs No. 4 Penn (17-10, 9-5 Ivy), Jadwin Gym, 4:30 p.m. (available on ESPN+)
Game #1, 1/16/23: Princeton (home) over Penn, 55-40
Game #2, 3/3/23: Princeton over Penn (home), 71-52
PRINCETON, N.J. — It is hard to envision a more disheartening end to an Ivy League regular season than the collapse Penn orchestrated on Saturday at Jadwin Gymnasium.
The Quakers (17-12, 9-5 Ivy) squandered a 17-point second-half lead before falling in overtime to Princeton (19-8, 10-4), 77-69, handing a share of the Ivy regular season title to their most bitter rivals.
Penn’s undoing was an offensive outage when it mattered most. After sophomore guard George Smith hit a contested layup to extend the Quakers’ edge to 66-58 with 4:16 to go, the team did not make a shot from the field for the remainder of regulation or overtime, a 9:16 stretch.
The Quakers are now locked into the No. 3 seed for next Saturday’s Ivy League Tournament, which will also be held at Jadwin. They will either get a third crack at Princeton or a rubber match against Yale, depending on the result of Yale’s Saturday night road game against Brown.
All the good feelings from Penn’s eight-game winning streak have disappeared in a flash, replaced by a handful of mostly painful Quakeaways:
ITHACA, N.Y. — Two things needed to happen for the Cornell men to make it to the Ivy League Tournament: beat Columbia and hope Brown loses to Yale.
Part one of that equation has been completed.
Despite another stupefying second-half collapse, the Princeton men’s basketball team somehow hung on to defeat the Harvard Crimson at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday, 58-56. With the win, the Tigers retained a share of first place in the conference standings and guaranteed themselves an opportunity to earn at least a share of the Ivy League title with a win on senior night at Jadwin Gym next Saturday against the Penn Quakers in the regular season finale for both teams.
The Tigers gutted out this hugely important road win despite a harrowing stretch of offensive futility that echoed Princeton’s epic second-half collapse against Yale last weekend.
Senior guard Ryan Langborg led the Tigers with 18 points and six rebounds while Evan Nelson led Harvard in scoring with 19 points in a losing cause. Chris Ledlum, playing his final game at Lavietes, was held to 14 points (five below his average), but muscled his way to a game-high 11 rebounds for the Crimson, who were eliminated from Ivy Madness on Senior Night by Princeton for the second year in a row.
The Ivy League Tournament bubble.
Certainly not uncharted territory for the Cornell men. But after the way the season started to trend for the Big Red, it’s a bit of a surprise we’re talking about this.
Cornell has lost four of its last five games, dropping the team from a tie for first to a tie for fourth. By virtue of a tiebreaker, the Big Red would be in Ivy Madness over Brown since it beat Yale and Penn. The Bears have only beaten Princeton among the trio of teams tied for the conference lead.
But that tiebreaker is by no means safe.
What happened?
Penn took a huge step towards securing a berth in Ivy Madness on Saturday with a nearly wire-to-wire 80-72 win over Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.
Though the Quakers (14-11, 6-4 Ivy) led the game for 38:59, there were some nervous moments in the second half, as careless turnovers and a scoring drought that spanned 5:51 of game time let the Crimson (12-12, 3-7) close their deficit to as little as three points with 3:37 to go.
Penn only made one field goal in the game’s final 10 minutes — a corner three from sophomore guard George Smith — and relied on 20-23 free throw shooting in the final 3:18 to keep Harvard at bay. Smith hit five three throws in that span, as did senior swingman Lucas Monroe.
The Red and Blue pretty much stuck the dagger in Harvard’s playoff hopes with the victory; Harvard now sits alone in seventh place in the Ivy standings, three full games out of playoff position.
Meanwhile, Penn sits just a game out of first place in the league and controls its own destiny for at least a share of the Ivy crown.
That tantalizing possibility is one of many things Penn fans can chew over from an uplifting win, such as the fact that …
In a surprise Wednesday afternoon announcement, the Ivy League office stated that the 2024 Ivy League men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be held at Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium. Specific dates for the four-day event have not been posted.
The announcement signals a substantial change in the Ivy League’s rotation of tournament locations set in 2019. Brown was slated to host the tournaments next in 2024.
The Ivy League attributed the move to Levien Gym to gym renovations being finished sooner than expected when the original tourney rotation was announced in a statement Wednesday.
“The future of the rotation remains under continuous evaluation,” Ivy League spokesman Matt Panto told Ivy Hoops Online in an email Wednesday. “The league is excited to bring the tournaments to Princeton next month and New York City in 2024.”
Brown Athletics did not respond to a request for comment.
“New York City is home to passionate and dedicated alumni and fans from all eight Ivy League institutions,” Ivy League executive director Robin Harris said in Wednesday’s statement. “Coupled with the energy of March Madness and the enthusiasm that this event has built over just a short period of time, the league could not be more excited to host Ivy Madness in the Big Apple.”