John J. Lee Amphitheater

Ivy Tournament update: Ticket sales begin Tuesday

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The Ivy League announced that tickets for the third Ivy Tournament will begin with a presale for select individuals on Tues., Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. For all other fans, tickets will be available on Fri., Dec. 14 at 10 a.m.  After holding the first two postseason events at Penn’s Palestra, this year’s version of Ivy Madness will take place on March 16th and 17th at Yale’s John J. Lee Amphitheater.  After checking out IvyMadness.com and reaching out to Matt Panto, Associate Executive Director, Strategic Communications & External Relations for the Ivy League, here is information on the upcoming ticket sale.

  • The presale will be for those individuals who are included on the league’s database for ticket holders to the first two Ivy Tournaments
  • Each institution has also been notifying select individuals via their school databases
  • Those eligible in the league’s database will receive an email on Monday (Dec. 10) and Tuesday morning (Dec. 11)
  • Right now, there are 2,800 seats available at the JLA. To accommodate some of the additional needs of the Tournament, there may be a slight reduction in Standing Room Only tickets that are available for regular season events
  • The is no maximum to the number of tickets that can be purchased
  • Tickets can be purchased for Session 1 (Men’s Semifinals – Saturday 12:30 pm & 3 pm); Session 2 (Women’s Semifinals – Saturday 6 pm & 30 minutes after conclusion of previous game); Session 3 (Men’s and Women’s Championships – Sunday 12 pm & 4 pm); All Sessions; Women’s Sessions Only; and Women’s Championship Only
  • Purchasing Men’s tickets for Saturday grants access to women’s games for that day
  • Prices for the different options are as followed: Session 1 (Mid-court $95, Balcony/SRO $35); Session 2 (Mid-court $25, Side Reserved Chairbacks $25, Balcony/SRO $25); Session 3 (Mid-court $75, Balcony/SRO $25); All Sessions (Mid-court $155, Balcony/SRO $55); Women’s Sessions Only (Mid-court $35, Balcony/SRO $35); Women’s Championship Only (Mid-court $20, Side Reserved Chairbacks $20, Balcony/SRO $20)
  • The following sections will not be available: Sections 001-004 at the endlines (participating team bands and cheerleaders); 101-102 and 104-105 along the sidelines behind the team benches (guests of participating player and coaches); 103 at the mid-court sideline on the team bench side (select media and game administrators)
  • Sections 106 and 110 will be reserved for students.  While the specific number of seats was not disclosed, each participating program will receive the same number of tickets for student and institutional sale
  • Courtside seats will not be available through the Ivy Madness website.  Those interested should contact the Yale Athletic Ticket office directly by calling (203) 432-1400
  • Select Balcony and Standing Room Only tickets may have limited view
  • Students from participating programs will need to contact their school’s ticket office to purchase tickets
  • For those not able to secure tickets to the games, the JLA will be open on Friday March 15th for fans to attend the free shootarounds for any/all of the eight teams.  The “Live from Ivy Madness” event, which will feature the shootarounds, press conferences and interviews, be available on ESPN+ from 8:45 am until (approximately) 5:00 pm.  The Men’s semifinals and Women’s final can be seen on ESPNU, the Women’s semifinals will be on ESPN3, and the Men’s final will be on ESPN2

 

Yale tops Miami, serves notice to rest of Ivy League

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It seemed crazy. What was Yale coach James Jones thinking? No home game until Dec. 5. A trip to China to play a Pac-12 foe (California) and trips to perennial national powers Miami and Memphis.
The answer is simple. Jones wanted to prepare his talented team, strangely picked only third in the league by the media pundits, for the Ivy wars starting in January. He is fully aware that it is unlikely for two Ivy teams to secure NCAA bids, so why not play the best to ultimately be the best Ivy squad?
The Elis secured perhaps their biggest out-of-league win since the epic 2016 NCAA win over Baylor, by beating heavily favored Miami of the ACC Saturday, 77-73. Miami entered the game with the No. 30 KenPom ranking nationally, the second-highest ranking of a team beaten by Yale in the KenPom era going back to 2001-02 (topped only by the Baylor win). The Elis were down by 10 at the half and fell to a 56-41 deficit in the second half.

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2018-19 Ivy League Preseason Power Rankings

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Another college basketball season is upon us. So what can we expect from the Ancient Eight this season coming off a down year for the league overall?

With so much returning talent across the conference, anticipate higher quality of play from both the Ivies who make the conference tournament and those who don’t.

1. Harvard

The Crimson missed their two highest-usage players on offense down the stretch of the Ivy League Tournament final versus Penn at the Palestra: Bryce Aiken, who suffered a knee injury and missed 18 of the final 22 games of the season, and Seth Towns, who suffered a knee injury with around eight minutes left and did not return. Of course, Penn edged out Harvard in the end, the Crimson coming up just short in the face of the Red and Blue’s home-court advantage even without the 2017-18 Ivy Player of the Year (Towns) and 2016-17 Rookie of the Year (Aiken).

Harvard would have likely punched a NCAA Tournament ticket if it had those two standouts in tow, and they’ll probably do the same if they have them in tow this season.

If.

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Ivy League coaches’ roundtables: About the brand, not the players

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In past years, the Ivy League office organized a teleconference call for the men’s basketball coaches, a few days after the preseason media poll. At those events, the coaches would talk about their teams, as well as answer questions from the Ivy League moderator and a small number of reporters. In addition, Reggie Greenwood, the league’s Coordinator of Officials, would discuss any rule changes for the upcoming season. This year, the league decided to do away with the call in favor of having roundtable conversations with the men’s and women’s coaches.

The two 30-minute videos, which were shot in New Haven on Sept. 5 (women’s coaches) and Sept. 12 (men’s coaches), focused on the general improved state of Ivy recruiting, the difficulties in scheduling nonconference games as an improved mid-major conference, the unique challenges in playing back-to-back Ivy weekends, the importance of the Ivy Tournament for late-season competitiveness, and the significance of the league’s partnership with ESPN.  What fans did not hear was anything related to the specific teams and players.

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Talking Ivy Madness with Ivy League Senior Assistant Director Trevor Rutledge-Leverenz

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After holding the first two Ivy Tournaments at the University of Pennsylvania’s Palestra, it was widely assumed that the 2019 edition would move away from the league’s most famous arena. While the reviews for both events were positive from players, coaches, administrators and fans, there were some league stakeholders who had concerns. The main issues generally focused on the home court advantage for Penn, attendance problems associated with holding the tournament in the conference’s southern-most location, and the timing of the women’s semifinal match-ups.

On May 24th, a day before the start of Memorial Day Weekend, the Ivy League office announced that the third edition of Ivy Madness would be held on the campus of Yale University at the John J. Lee Amphitheater (JLA) at Payne Whitney Gymnasium. The tournament will occur on March 16th and 17th, in the middle of Yale’s two week spring recess, with the games taking place at the same times as the 2018 tournament. On Saturday, the men’s semifinals will tip-off at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., while the women’s games will start at 6 p.m. and approximately 30 minutes following the conclusion of the previous contest. The men’s final will be held at noon on Sunday, and the women’s championships will be at 4 p.m.  All tournament games will be televised by ESPN on its family of networks.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Feb. 9-10, 2018

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Some unexpected contributors carried their teams on their backs this weekend, yielding varied results.

In Harvard’s 66-51 win over Princeton Friday night, the Crimson offense flowed through sophomore guard Christian Juzang, who posted 20 points – 12 more than his career high up to that point – on 6-for-10 shooting alongside four assists. Columbia rookie guard Gabe Stefanini notched a career-high 20 points in just 27 minutes in the Lions’ wild overtime loss at Brown Saturday night, 17 of them coming in the second half or extra period. After scoring just 26 points in the previous five games, Yale freshman guard Azar Swain registered 25 this weekend, his 7-for-12 (58.3 percent) clip from deep lifting an Elis squad that had been hurting from three-point range.

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Ivy women’s basketball week in review

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1. Princeton (9-3)

Win – at Wagner, 58-37

Win – vs St. Joe’s, 63-54 (at Gainesville, Gator Classic)
Win – vs UT-Chattanooga, 59-49 (at Gainesville, Gator Classic)

The Tigers opened up a 17 point lead on Wagner by the second quarter, but the Seahawks got the lead down to five 30 seconds into the second half.  An 8-1 run over the next three minutes stretched the lead back to double-digits and the Tigers never looked back.  Leslie Robinson, Sydney Jordan and Carlie Littlefield each put up 10 points in the low-scoring contest.  Defensively, Princeton held Wagner to a season-low 37 points, including 30 percent shooting and only one three-pointer.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Feb. 20, 2017

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This was a momentous weekend for Ivy League basketball. First-place Princeton ran its winning streak to 13 games (10 in Ivy competition) in dominant fashion. Penn, meanwhile, snagged the No. 4 slot in the Ivy standings, erasing a Columbia four-game lead over the Red and Blue in the standings in just nine days courtesy of an equally dominant road sweep of Brown and Yale, a watermark back-to-back sequence for a long dormant program.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Feb. 13, 2017

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As IHO writer Rob Browne pointed out to me Sunday night, this was a topsy-turvy weekend for Ivy hoops. Comebacks came and went, winning and losing streaks were snapped and the race for the league tournament No. 4 seed got muddled:

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Princeton extends winning streak to 11 games

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After a weekend sweep at home against Cornell and Columbia, the Tigers have now played every other team in the league, Penn twice. With a perfect 8-0 record, Princeton is clear of the second-place Harvard Crimson and Yale Bulldogs by two full games and is in control of the No. 1 seed in next month’s Ivy League Tournament. The Tigers are easily within the top 100 teams as ranked by KenPom and  Sagarin, while Harvard and Yale are outside. It is doubtful that either team will leapfrog the Tigers, even if one or both of them finish the regular season tied with Princeton. The top seed is crucial for the team that gets it. If it’s Princeton, that means Yale and Harvard will play each other in the tournament.

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