Jerome Allen

The Chairman’s big night at Jadwin … and the Tigers’ big win

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The theme for Saturday night’s visit by the Columbia Lions to Jadwin Gym was “HISTORY.”

The Tiger faithful gathered to celebrate history, honoring at halftime the 50th Anniversary of the 1965 Final Four team, captained by the incomparable Bill Bradley. Sensing the significance of the occasion, Columbia’s Maodo “The Chairman” Lo determined to make a little history of his own. More on that below.

The 1965 Tigers reached the Final Four in an Eastern Regional matchup facing the Providence Friars at their place. The night before the final, the Friars celebrated their win in the semis by cutting down the nets in what remains the most egregious example of early chicken counting in this writer’s memory. (The back-slapping of James Jones and his staff in the last minute at Harvard Friday night is a recent contender.) Stung by the snub, the Tigers thrashed the Friars, 109-69. A request for the previous evening’s nets was declined.

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Ivy Saturday Roundup

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Princeton 85, Columbia 83

An 11-0 run in the final 2:08 gave Princeton the series sweep over the Lions, now losers of four straight in spite of junior guard Maodo Lo shooting a stunning 11-for-15 from beyond the arc for 37 points. Princeton junior forward Hans Brase exploded for 23 points and made the game-winning layup with 15 seconds remaining. The Tigers will finish third in the conference.

Harvard 72, Brown 62

Harvard did what it needed to do to online casino one-game playoff” href=”https://ivyhoopsonline.com/2015/03/07/yale-loses-late-at-dartmouth-triggers-one-game-playoff/” target=”_blank”>(successfully) stay in the Ivy title hunt thanks to junior guard Siyani Chambers” 15-point performance and in spite of Brown junior forward Cedric Kuakumensah”s  23 points and seven boards.

Penn 79, Cornell 72

Just hours after news broke that Penn coach Jerome Allen will not be retained at season”s end, the Quakers destroyed Cornell in a game more lopsided than the final score indicated. Six Quakers scored in double figures to easily offset Cornell senior forward Shonn Miller”s 23 points and eight boards in his final game with the Big Red.

Penn coach Jerome Allen fired – why the Allen era didn't work

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Jerome Allen ultimately couldn
Jerome Allen ultimately couldn”t successfully come full circle as Penn”s head coach after a wildly successful run as a player for the Quakers.(usatoday.com)

As ESPN”s Jeff Goodman first reported, Jerome Allen has been fired from his post as Penn’s head coach, an inevitable, Shakespearean ending to a marriage that saw much more sickness than health over Allen”s tenure. The writing had been on the wall for seasons, and after he coaches on Saturday against Cornell and Tuesday against Princeton, Allen will relieve his post. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that M. Grace Calhoun informed the coach that he had been relieved of his duties on Monday, following his squad”s third-straight weekend in which the Quakers were swept.

Allen’s time as Penn’s head coach was a tragedy indeed. For starters, on a personal level, anyone who knows Allen personally speaks to his high character, that he is a wonderful person who people trust. And Jerome Allen, the man – who came from a rough part of the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, who has a family and kids – just lost his job after continually coming up short for years, which is never an easy thing to endure for anyone.

But now that the story of Jerome Allen, the coach, has come to its end, he deserves just as much sympathy as he does criticism.

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Ivy Friday Roundup

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Dartmouth 75, Brown 69

Wow. Just wow. Brown raced to a 14-0 lead and seemed to have the win secured with a 50-26 lead and 13:58 remaining. Not so. The Big Green finished the game on a 49-19 run, aided by three Brown technical fouls and a 17-point effort from last week’s Ivy Co-Player of the Week Malik Gill. Just a week after Brown overcame a 40-23 deficit to trump Cornell, a comeback got the best of the Bears this time around. Dartmouth, which went on a 26-2 run en route to a win at Harvard earlier this season, now awaits Yale, which had a little success of its own at Lavietes Pavilion and needs the win to clinch its first outright Ivy crown and NCAA tournament berth since 1962. Of course, a win over Yale launched the Big Green into the postseason (in this case, the CIT) for the first time since 1959, so Dartmouth has already won the drought game.

Penn 54, Columbia 46

As Penn coach Jerome Allen pointed out after the game, Columbia scored 46 in the first half against Penn a month ago en route to an 83-56 romp. Tonight, it took the Lions the entire game to reach that total. Junior guard Tony Hicks led the way for Penn, posting 19 points and eight boards, helping Penn snap a seven-game losing streak.

Princeton 66, Cornell 53

The Tigers’ 23 bench points and 15-point performance from senior guard Clay Wilson lifted Princeton past the Big Red, which shot just 37.5 percent in spite of senior forward Shonn Miller, who posted 25 points. And of course, sophomore forward Spencer Weisz notched 10 points, the 10th straight game Princeton has won when Weisz scores in double figures.

 

Lenses on Penn basketball’s expenses

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There has been much talk in the past several years, particularly this season, about how much or little support Penn Athletics has received from the university.

It must be noted that the problem for Penn Athletics isn’t the inability to spend. According to data from the Office of Postsecondary Education, Penn’s annual expenses since 2004 – the start of Amy Gutmann’s presidency at Penn – average out to 30,644,364, the highest average in expenses in the Ivy League in that span:

Average Annual Athletics Expenses Since 2004

  1. Penn 30,644,364
  2. Yale 27,483,608
  3. Princeton 19,230,050
  4. Harvard 18,707,094
  5. Columbia 18,703,370
  6. Dartmouth 18,673,655
  7. Cornell 18,589,023
  8. Brown 15,175,837

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It's all about the Benjamins for Penn Basketball

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Ben Franklin AQ 2One of the most august positions in world economics is held by Penn’s founder, Benjamin Franklin.  This is because besides being the consummate Penn Man —philosopher, humorist, inventor, publisher, Ambassador to France, politician, author, scientist and, of course, whoremaster — Big Ben’s portrait graces the front of the $100 bill.  As the Ivy basketball season winds down with Pennsylvania”s once equally august hoops program firmly in the cellar, Penn President Amy Gutmann should reach into her $9.6 billion endowment, pull out a hundy, and take note.

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Penn junior guard Tony Hicks suspended for weekend

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Penn Athletics announced today that junior guard Tony Hicks was suspended by coach Jerome Allen for Penn’s games at Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that Hicks did not travel with the team to New England.

Observers say Hicks twisted the hand of a Brown player in what appeared to be a sign of poor sportsmanship, which followed Hicks getting charged with a technical foul with 6:22 remaining in a 71-55 home loss to Brown for arguing with an official.

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The case for Jerome Allen

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(Laurence Kesterson/AP)
(Laurence Kesterson/AP)

For the next three weeks, there will be no shortage of people calling for Jerome Allen to be fired and replaced as Penn basketball’s head coach. The reasoning is simple: With Allen at the helm over the past five and a half seasons, the Quakers have gone 63-99 and appear on their way to another below .500 season along with a third straight bottom half of the Ivy League finish.

But no matter the reasons his many detractors will provide for his ouster, there are definitely reasons to keep Allen aboard for next season. The following isn’t an opinion piece advocating for Allen but simply lays out the main factors Athletic Director Grace Calhoun will have to look into before making her final decision after the season.

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IHO Power Rankings – Feb. 10

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1. Harvard (5-1)

Harvard’s still the class of the conference. The Crimson held Yale to 11 points in the entire first half at Payne Whitney Gym to tie Yale atop the Ivy standings at 5-1 in league play. Wesley Saunders’ career-high 33 points did Brown in in overtime the night before. Reports of the Crimson’s demise were clearly premature. Harvard hosts Columbia and Cornell at home, two more solid defensive squads that will not be easy outs at Lavietes. The thing about Harvard is that the Crimson win the close ones – they’re 8-1 in overtime games since 2010. I have a feeling that that stat will be coming into play at least one more time down the stretch.

2. Yale (5-1)

The Bulldogs responded to the biggest game for their program in quite some time by going 3-for-22 in the first half. Harvard’s defense is awesome, but the Elis were visibly a little tense in the early going too. Still, Yale is 5-1 and tied for the conference lead with its greatest rival and another shot at that rival at Lavietes, the same place Yale trumped Harvard last season. All is not lost for the Elis, but it was disconcerting to see them abandon Justin Sears in the second half.

More importantly, the Whiffenpoofs are full steam ahead.

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IHO Power Poll – Feb. 2

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Ben Franklin AQIt is I, The AQ. This week I am guest hosting the IHO Power Rankings. For the purists out there, after the first back-to-back Ivy weekend, the rankings should probably look something like this:

Yale
Harvard
Princeton
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Pennsylvania
Brown

Normally, this list is dutifully accompanied by the earnest commentary and incisive statistical analysis that you’ve come to know and love from IHO. An introspection of our favorite teams that is indeed worthy of our elite educations.

For those of you expecting this, my apologies in advance. This week, since it is still early in the 14-Game Tournament and because there were no real surprises in the games last weekend, I thought it was the perfect time to switch things up a bit. (After all, you have the whole month of February to get your ORAT freak on.) Instead, I’ve decided to rank the teams as I see them which of course has nothing to do with reality. So without further ado, here is The AQ’s “Special” IHO Power Rankings for February 1, 2015.

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