Justin Sears

Harvard all-time moment No. 3: Harvard beats Yale in 2015 Ivy playoff

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because Jonah Travis is a master Tweeter.

With 28 seconds remaining in March 7’s Yale-Dartmouth game, Harvard had a 0.41 percent chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament (according to KenPom). The Crimson needed Dartmouth to pull out a miracle victory to force a one-game playoff between Harvard and Yale, and even then the Crimson would need to win that game to earn an NCAA bid. By the time those 28 seconds elapsed, Dartmouth had taken care of the “miracle victory” part of the equation, setting the stage for an epic Ivy League battle at the Palestra between two archrivals who had split the season series.

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Harvard all-time moment No. 8: Dartmouth keeps Harvard in the dance

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Harvard is next because why not turn fat cells into lasers?

March 6’s bout between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson was the rubber match of the 2015 Ivy League season. People (like me!) called it “The Game 2.0.” Yale came into Crimson territory and left with a big win, one that seemed to ensure that the Bulldogs would go to the Big Dance for the first time in 53 years. All Yale needed to clinch sole possession of the Ivy League title was a win at Dartmouth the next night, or a Harvard loss to Brown. As for Harvard, there was only one way left for them to tie Yale for the Ivy title: Defeat Brown the following night and pray for the Big Green to shock the Bulldogs in Hanover.

The Crimson took care of business at Lavietes Pavilion, beating Brown 72-62 behind a strong second-half surge. As the Harvard-Brown game ended, a group of diehard Crimson fans in Lavietes turned their attention to the Dartmouth-Yale game, which Yale led by two with 10 minutes to go. The teams battled hard until, with 24 seconds remaining, Yale led by three and had possession of the ball. Then craziness ensued.

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Yale all-time moment No. 1: Elis share the 2015 title

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We did Yale next by request of Justin Sears:

We all know the 2014-15 Yale men”s basketball season didn”t have a storybook ending. Just four months ago, Harvard edged out Yale at the Palestra, 53-51, in an already legendarily back-and-forth Ivy playoff game after the Bulldogs let a last-second lead literally slip away at Dartmouth that would have clinched the Elis” first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1962. Then the NIT online casino inexplicably slipped away too.

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Yale all-time moment No. 2: CIT final berth in 2014

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

Yale”s run through the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) first round in 2014 was quite the roller coaster. First, a three-pointer banked in by Justin Sears with 0.07 seconds left gave Yale a 69-68 squeaker over Quinnipiac. Then in the second round, Yale prevailed at Holy Cross, 71-66, overcoming a 66-65 deficit with 1:43 remaining to make James Jones online casino the winningest coach in Yale basketball history (surpassing Joe Vancisin). Yale”s next win came by a 72-69 at Ivy rival Columbia, which had beaten the Bulldogs 62-46 on the same Levien Gym floor.

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Yale all-time moment No. 7: Knocking off the national champ

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears, who had 12 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks in our next all-time moment…

On Nov. 30, 2014, Yale did something it hadn’t done before: Defeat a defending national champion. And it did so in the most dramatic way possible.

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Yale all-time moment No. 10: John Lee's 1957 season

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears, who is sure to show up on this list at some point himself:

It isn”t the John J. Lee Amphitheater for nothing.

After gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated in January and averaging over 24 points per game in Ivy play, Lee led his Yale team to the 1957 NCAA Tournament, where the Elis fell at Madison Square Garden to highly regarded North Carolina, 90-74, despite Lee”s 25-point performance.

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Top 10 Ivy players of the past five years

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The past five years have been incredible for the Ivy League. Two forever memorable Ivy playoff games, two NCAA Tournament wins, nine top 100 KenPom finishes and a clear uptick in athleticism throughout the conference.

But who have been the greatest players in the league in that timespan? A countdown, with the caveat that only players who played at least two seasons from 2010-15 were considered.

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ALL FOOLS’ DAY: Entire Columbia roster withdraws from school, will return in 2016-17

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If you can’t beat them, join them. If you can’t join them, run away and see if you can beat them next year. This is the lesson that the Columbia Lions have learned, as the entire team has withdrawn from school, saving each a year of eligibility and casting focus to the 2016-17 season.

The Light Blue will effectively dodge a a solid Princeton squad, an experienced Yale team with Justin Sears in his senior year, defending champion Harvard with the ever-problematic Siyani Chambers in his final year, and will no longer have to suffer at the hands of Dartmouth’s Alex Mitola, something Columbia coach Kyle Smith will not take lightly.

“Look, there comes a point at which you have to do what’s best for your team,” Smith said. “Plus, it’s not like we’re going to do any worse than the football team! Am I right? Guys?”

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IHO 2014-15 All-Ivy Awards

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Ivy Hoops Online founder Ian Halpern, On the Vine host Peter Andrews and I combined to determine the 2014-15 All-IHO selections:

IHO PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Justin Sears, Yale (Jr., F – Plainfield, N.J.)

Sears snared IHO POY honors for his yeoman’s work in the Yale frontcourt, registering 14.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game, pushing the Bulldogs just short of their first NCAA tournament berth in 53 years. Sears eclipsed 25 points in four Ivy contests and anchored a stout Yale defense all season long. (For the record, I voted for Wesley Saunders for POY based on his second-half heroics in the Ivy playoff game, but I was outvoted 2-1. It’s a good problem to have several legitimate POY candidates, though, that’s for sure.)

IHO ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Kyle Castlin, Columbia (Fr., G – Marietta, Ga.)

Castlin made an immediate impact in the Lions’ dynamic backcourt, posting 18 points in 30 minutes in just his second collegiate game and displaying levels of body control and offensive awareness that most players in this league never attain. He scored in double figures in 14 of 28 games and was one of the few constants in a Columbia offense that struggled to find options beyond Maodo Lo.

IHO DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Shonn Miller, Cornell (Sr., F – Euclid, Ohio)

Miller anchored Cornell’s gritty and physically large defense, posting 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals per game while notching a 28 percent defensive rebound rate that was good for seventh in the country. Cornell doesn’t beat Harvard late in the season without Miller’s defensive chops, and it certainly doesn’t finish third in the league in scoring defense without him either.

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Wesley Saunders makes all the right plays … again

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Wesley Saunders took over in the most critical half of the 2015 Ivy slate, reeling off a 9-0 run early in the second stanza and dishing the game-winning assist to fellow senior Steve Moundou-Missi. (Getty)
Wesley Saunders took over in the most critical half of the 2015 Ivy slate, reeling off a 9-0 run early in the second stanza and dishing the game-winning assist to fellow senior Steve Moundou-Missi. (Getty)

For a Pennsylvanian, albeit one with steadfast Tiger loyalties, The Palestra has always been college basketball’s showcase arena. May it ever be!!! Yesterday’s Ivy League playoff adds another memorable chapter to The Cathedral’s legendary history.

The announced attendance of 5,266 was far less than a capacity crowd, evidently diminished by bad weather and long-distance travel hurdles. But one must remember that this was easily the largest crowd to see an Ivy League game in several seasons.

The pregame mood was festive, but somewhat apprehensive as everyone understood that they were about to witness another hard fought, hand-to-hand street-fight likely to come down to the final possession, what Yogi Berra famously described as  “a real cliff-dweller.” This game delivered, in spades.

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