Home of the Roundball Poets
Princeton, last year’s undisputed regular season champions, were picked to take home the 2025 Ivy title in the preseason media poll released on Tuesday.
Led by junior forward Caden Pierce, the 2024 Player of the Year, and first team All-Ivy junior guard Xaivian Lee, Mitch Henderson’s Tigers picked up 15 of 16 first place votes and 127 of a maximum 128 points.
Ivy Hoops Online caught up with James Jones as he begins his 26th year at Yale with early-season September workouts to prepare his team for the 2024-25 slate:
IHO: What are the strengths of your team this season?
JJ: Confidence, which comes from our success. We are smaller than we have been with a higher work ethic. Everyone on the team has it. Last season we had a good work ethic, but not like this.
IHO: Talk about John Poulakidas and Bez Mbeng, both seniors.
JJ: They are comparable to any of our top two seniors over the years. Like Brandon Sherrod and Justin Sears.
IHO: Who are some guys that you think might have breakout seasons?
Teo Rice is a 6-foot-2 Yale men’s basketball junior from Bethesda, Md. who was just elected as captain of the 2024-25 Bulldogs. Rice appeared in 11 games this season off the bench. He recently sat down with Ivy Hoops Online for an interview:
Ivy Hoops Online caught up with Yale coach James Jones Wednesday following his return from Spokane, Wash., where his team notched the second ever NCAA Tournament win in program history last week with a triumph over Auburn before falling to San Diego State in the Round of 32:
No. 13 Yale’s NCAA Tournament run ended with a second-round thud Sunday night local time in Spokane, Wash. in an 85-57 loss to No. 5 San Diego State.
Yale men’s basketball coach James Jones is preparing to coach his fifth NCAA Tournament game after his team won the Ivy League Tournament in dramatic fashion Monday.
Yale’s Big Dance foe this time around is Auburn, with Yale allotted a No. 13 seed in the East Region and playing in Spokane, Wash.
Jones sat down with Ivy Hoops Online Tuesday in advance of its last practice in New Haven before departing on an NCAA charter flight. The Bulldogs, like all NCAA Tournament teams, were allotted 350 tickets and expect to have many fans present from Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest Yale Club. Yale played in Spokane in November at Gonzaga, losing 86-71.
The final day of the 2024 Ivy League Tournament was an incredibly chaotic one, which started hours before the noon tipoff of the thrilling men’s championship and ended with a near-midnight zoom celebratory conference call with Columbia women’s basketball coach Megan Griffith.
For the second day in a row, the tournament provided its fair share of emotional highs and lows. There may still be people who haven’t taken to the thought of Ivy Madness, after eight years and six events, but it is an amazing weekend to celebrate the talented players and coaches and showcase this shouldn’t-be-under-the-radar conference to the nation.
I’m still in a bit of a stupor from the last few days, but I’ll try my best to recount scenes from a lengthy final day:
Cornell men’s basketball was 14-0 when giving up 76 or fewer points this season.
Make that 14-1, as Yale defeated the Big Red, 69-57, at Levien Gym to advance to the Ivy League Tournament final against Brown at noon Sunday.
Another great day in the books at Columbia University and Levien Gymnasium.
Four good press conferences, two very good semifinal games and lots of tasty food (including pizza!) in the media room. It’s really hard to beat a day like that.
Some things of note from an Ivy hoops Friday:
The men’s competition in the Ivy League Tournament kicks off on Saturday afternoon at Columbia University and for the first time since the advent of Ivy Madness there is no clear favorite. While the Princeton Tigers enter the tournament as the No. 1 seed and the regular season champion, each of the four teams competing on Saturday at Levien Gym legitimately has a chance to advance to the championship game on Sunday.
Let’s take a closer look at the two semifinal matchups in the men’s competition: