Home of the Roundball Poets
HANOVER, N.H. – Throughout a more than a little frustrating season, the defense has not been the problem for Brown men’s basketball.
The Bears are solidly in the middle of the pack in Ivy League defensive efficiency.
But the Bears just can’t score. Or more appropriately, they can’t shoot, ranking among one of the worst teams nationally in effective field-goal shooting (as well as three-point shooting).
All of which made the second half at Leede Arena Saturday night stunning.
HANOVER, N.H. – For those of us who saw Harvard men’s basketball dominate the Ivy League (and make a big mark on the national stage) for most of the 2010s, it’s somewhat unfathomable to point out that the Crimson have not been part of Ivy Madness since 2019.
Penn men’s basketball picked up a critical victory in its first extended road trip of Ivy League play on Saturday, taking advantage of a spectacular second half to down Dartmouth, the last unbeaten team in the league standings, 84-74.
The Quakers (9-7, 2-1 Ivy) overcame a string of early self-imposed issues thanks to dominant halves from their two best players. Ethan Roberts carried the team in the first half while TJ Power was confined to the bench with foul trouble; Power scored nine points in the 12-0 run early in the second stanza which gave the Quakers the lead for the rest of the afternoon.
Power lived up to his last name during that decisive run. He started it off by dribbling into a wide-open three, then gave the Quakers the lead with a spinning drive on Dartmouth (8-8, 2-1) wing Jayden Williams. No one the Big Green threw at Power could handle the 6-foot-9 junior.
Suddenly, the Ivy season looks wide-open for the Quakers, who are now in a five-way tie for the league lead. Monday’s matchup with fellow 2-1 team Harvard looms as a massive opportunity.
What did Penn fans learn from a happy start to the long weekend?
In a matchup Saturday between the Ivy men’s best three-point shooting team, Cornell, and the league’s best perimeter defense, Dartmouth, the Big Red turned in one of their worst long-range shooting games of the season, falling by a 102-91 margin.
HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth men’s basketball team miraculously escaped an upset from in-state rival New Hampshire Wednesday night by scoring the game’s final nine points, with Kareem Thomas’ runner with 5.5 seconds left holding up for a 69-68 win.
The Big Green (3-3) looked disjointed for most of the evening, particularly on the offensive end, and there will likely need to be several areas of improvement if Dartmouth is to follow up on last season’s inaugural Ivy League Tournament bid.
But that’s not a surprise to them. With Ryan Cornish now graduated, others like senior Brandon Mitchell-Day and sophomore Connor Amundsen (who was also injured to start the campaign) have seen the brunt of opposing defenses’ attention, especially Amundsen, who at 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds is a clear target for teams like New Hampshire that have good size at the guard position.
HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth men’s basketball team was the surprise of the Ivy League last season, defying preseason prognostications to finish third and qualify for its first Ivy League Tournament. That was some vindication for coach David McLaughlin in his ninth season in charge, as the Big Green’s winning conference record was the program’s first this century.
All praise is fleeting, of course, and a new campaign is upon us, one that got off to a bit of a rocky start with a 75-56 loss to Marist Sunday afternoon at Leede Arena.
HANOVER, N.H. – The hottest men’s basketball team in the Ivy League is Dartmouth.
Any controversy in the above statement lies only because of the school in question. The results speak for themselves, the latest an absolute obliteration of Cornell, 88-49, Saturday night at Leede Arena.
Dartmouth’s fourth straight win (by an average of 22.8 points) vaults them into solo second place in the Ivy League, heights the Big Green haven’t seen in the 21st century (and not too much before that, either). And at the moment Dartmouth looks like the main threat to Yale repeating its conference title in March, a strong statement from a team that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1959 and was picked dead last nearly unanimously in the preseason Ivy poll.
But, again, the facts and results speak for themselves. All that’s left is for David McLaughlin to channel Lou Brown and declare, “We’re contenders now.”
HANOVER, N.H. – It’s not often that Dartmouth has played the role of the hunted in the Ivy League in the last few decades. But they certainly looked the part Friday night at Leede Arena, beating Columbia in dominant fashion, 78-56.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Bez Mbeng was not in the mood for mincing words after setting Yale’s all-time career steals record in an 83-67 win over Dartmouth Monday afternoon.
“I love defense,” Mbeng, who passed former Yale standout Alex Zampier (2006-10) for the record, said.
And as he has for most of the last three seasons for Yale, Mbeng led the way in that department Monday at Lee Amphitheater, harassing Ryan Cornish, Connor Amundsen, or whomever else he was in the neighborhood of, finishing with three steals to go with 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
“It means a lot to me,” Mbeng said. “A lot of credit goes to my teammates and coaches for getting me better and putting me in good positions to get those steals. I’m just really thankful right now.”
With the non-conference schedule set to begin in less than three weeks, the Ivy League held its annual Media Day on Tuesday afternoon. The three-hour event, hosted by Lance Medow, featured coaches and players from each of the eight programs.
Fans can check out the recording on the conference’s YouTube channel.
Below are some highlights: