Home of the Roundball Poets
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The brown banner at the Pizzitola Sports Center sits ominously among a slew of white ones and reads “Men’s Basketball Ivy League Champions.”
Below that sits a lone number: 1986 — with plenty of space for a companion or two.
It almost read 2024, of course. We don’t have to rehash what happened last March in New York on this site, but Brown had earned its first NCAA Tournament in 38 years by upsetting Yale and Princeton. Until it hadn’t.
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:
NEW YORK – With 27 seconds to go and a 60-54 lead, Brown appeared destined to punch its first NCAA Tournament ticket since 1986.
But Yale finished the game on an 8-1 run, punctuated by a short jumper by senior forward Matt Knowling at the buzzer, to end Brown’s season and claim the Bulldogs’ third Ivy League Tournament championship since the tourney was installed for the 2016-17 season.
While the future is bright for a team that returns its entire starting lineup in 2024-25, it doesn’t remove the pain felt by the coaches, players and fans.
“Obviously, there is a lot in front of our people, but not this team, so that’s really hard,” the Brown alum and 12th-year head coach told the media immediately following the hard-fought battle “I felt like I let them down in the last minute of the game.”
Columbia men’s basketball battled back several times against Brown on Friday evening, eventually taking its first lead with 4:10 to go. But clutch defense and free throw shooting helped the Bears claim a hard fought 68-66 victory at Levien Gymnasium.
The win for Brown (8-17, 4-6 Ivy), coupled with Harvard’s loss to Princeton, leaves the Bears, Columbia (13-10, 4-6) and Harvard tied for fourth place and the final spot in the Ivy League Tournament with only four games remaining in the regular season.
A career-best 17 points from Columbia men’s basketball senior forward Josh Odunowo led the Lions to a huge 83-69 road win over Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.
Columbia (12-8, 3-4 Ivy) was in control for most of the game, using 11-2, 9-0 and 12-0 runs in a 17-minute period overlapping the two halves to open up an insurmountable 18-point lead and remain in fourth place in its quest for the program’s first-ever appearance in the Ivy League Tournament.
Penn’s season looks all but over after a late offensive outage spelled doom in Providence, R.I.
The Quakers had a chance to draw with one point of Brown with 5:30 to play after junior forward Nick Spinoso hit an and-one layup over the Bears’ Malachi Ndur. Spinoso line-drive bricked the free-throw and the score remained 56-54 in favor of the Bears.
Penn didn’t make another shot from the field until just 45 seconds remained. At that point, the lead for the Bears had swelled to 11 points in what wound up being a 70-61 win for Brown (6-14, 2-3 Ivy).
It’s hard to see the Quakers responding on the second day of a road back-to-back at Yale, the current league co-leader. Penn (9-11, 1-4) may remain mathematically alive to reach Ivy Madness for a few weeks longer, but the hole this team has dug for itself may be too deep to overcome.
There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways for fans to hold onto as they pick through the wreckage of a season that started with such promise.
Another weekend of Brown men’s basketball, another tale of two halves.
The Bears took a big lead in the opening frame and held off a furious Harvard rally two weeks ago. Last weekend, Bruno was the team making the oh-so-close comeback after Cornell jumped out to a big league.
This Saturday, the Bears were up 14 in the first half and 11 at the break, but Dartmouth completed the comeback to earn a hard-fought 75-71 Alumni Day win at Leede Arena.
The Big Green’s first Ancient Eight victory on the season for Dartmouth (5-12, 1-3 Ivy), coupled with other Saturday afternoon results, tied them with Brown (5-14, 1-3), Columbia, Harvard and Penn for fourth place.
After another exciting weekend of Ivy hoops that saw all the home teams holding serve, the league standings have a tie at the top, and seven teams are separated by only two games.
Yale continued its dominance of Princeton, winning for the eighth time in their last nine matchups. Meanwhile, Penn, losers of three straight league contests, won its third straight over Harvard in a must-win game at the Palestra.
Cornell, missing Nazir Williams, took care of Brown, which was without Kalu Anya, Dan Friday and Malachi Ndur. Dartmouth continued its strong league play with a victory over Columbia, its third league win it its last four contests and finds itself over .500 at the halfway point for the first time since 2009.
Saturday results
Yale over Princeton, 87-65
Penn over Harvard, 83-68
Cornell over Brown, 80-73
Dartmouth over Columbia, 83-73
Standings
Cornell 5-2 (15-5, overall)
Princeton 5-2 (14-6)
Yale 4-3 (14-6)
Dartmouth 4-3 (8-13)
Harvard 3-4 (12-9)
Brown 3-4 (10-10)
Penn 3-4 (11-11)
Columbia 1-6 (6-16)
The second half of the schedule starts with a big back-to-back weekend, highlighted by a matchup between the league leaders at Jadwin Gymnasium and Yale looking for revenge against Dartmouth at Leede Arena.
Fri., Feb. 3
Yale at Harvard, 5:00 p.m.
Brown at Dartmouth, 6:00 p.m.
Columbia at Penn, 7:00 p.m.
Cornell at Princeton, 7:00 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 4
Yale at Dartmouth, 6:00 p.m.
Brown at Harvard, 6:00 p.m.
Columbia at Princeton, 6:00 p.m.
Cornell at Penn, 6:00 p.m.
Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend: –
Despite missing two of their starting five for this weekend’s games, the Brown men came away with two convincing road victories against Bryant and Hartford.
The Bears (5-4), winners of four straight wins and five of their last six, are playing their best basketball of the year as they head into the last and hardest stretch of their nonconference schedule.
Despite the uncertainty that has come with COVID-19, Ivy hoops figures are still making plenty of moves.
Dunphy steps up again
In case you missed it, Temple named former Penn coach Fran Dunphy acting athletic director effective July 1 last week, 15 months after his 30-year head coaching career ended at Temple, which opted to hand over the coaching reins to assistant Aaron McKie and have Dunphy step aside after the 2018-19 season. Dunphy will succeed Patrick Kraft, who will be departing Temple to become Boston College’s athletic director on July 1. (Penn athletic director M. Grace Calhoun was also reportedly under consideration for the BC job, per the Boston Herald.) Dunphy is not expected to be a candidate for the athletic director’s job, but that could change, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported that Temple hoped to have an athletic director named within 90 days.