Thoughts on the Ivy League canceling the 2020-21 basketball season

A crowd of 1,636 gathered at Lavietes Pavilion on March 6 to watch Harvard host Brown. Four days later, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournaments to guard against COVID-19 transmission, a move many in college basketball considered unthinkable at the time. | Erica Denhoff

The Ivy League announced Thursday evening that winter sports for the 2020-21 season were cancelled in an effort to mitigate transmission of COVID-19. Was eliminating Ivy hoops the right move? Our contributors offer their thoughts:

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Yale women stymie Penn to create second-place scrum in Ivy standings

With two weeks to go till the Ivy women’s tournament begins, Yale moved into a second-place tie with Penn in the conference standings, 71-54.
Since Columbia kept pace with Yale and Penn at 7-4 in league play by winning at Harvard, the odds seem good that those three will join Princeton in the tournament in Boston.
Roxy Barahman had a stellar night for Yale (17-7 overall), and the defensive-minded Penn team (17-8) had no answer for her. The senior guard scored 29 points on 10-for-21 shooting, including 4-for-7 from beyond the arc, and served up five assists as the Bulldogs won at the Palestra for the first time in seven years.

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Penn women rout Cornell to complete weekend sweep

A night after the Penn women took a memorable game from Columbia in overtime, coach Mike McLaughlin said he was worried that fatigue might keep the Quakers from being sharp when they faced Cornell on Saturday at the Palestra.
The Quakers needed just five seconds to set those worries to rest.

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Harvard women take down Penn to start first full Ivy weekend

Penn first-year Kayla Padilla led the visiting Quakers with 21 points but on just 6-for-25 shooting as Tess Sussman (left), Matilda Salen (right) and the rest of the Crimson stymied the Red & Blue in a 58-51 victory at Lavietes Pavilion Friday. | Photo by Erica Denhoff
The hot-shooting Harvard women took an astounding lead into halftime against an ice-cold Penn team, and a Quaker revival in the second half wasn’t nearly enough Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion, as the Crimson won, 58-51.
How good was that 32-13 first half for Harvard? This is a team that relies on three-point scoring, and the Crimson (11-5, 2-1 Ivy) hit seven of 14 from outside, for two thirds of their points. Harvard had the edge in rebounding at halftime.

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Led by Kayla Padilla, Penn has been full of surprises

The Penn women played Princeton dead even in the regular season last year and almost beat them in the Ivy League Tournament. They lost two starters to graduation, but this year wasn’t supposed to provide much in the way of surprises: relentless defense, a disciplined half-court offense, and dominant play by junior center Eleah Parker. Well, Penn has been full of surprises, most of them good.

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Ivy women’s hoops weekend roundup – Nov. 8-10, 2019

Fri., Nov. 8

Harvard (2-0) 56 vs California (0-1) 53

Cornell (1-0) 71 at Albany (1-1) 51

Cornell opened the 2019-20 season with a dominant road win against Albany, which beat Columbia by four points in overtime on Tuesday.  As opposed to the run-and-gun game against the Lions, the Great Danes would be forced into a halfcourt contest by the defense-oriented Big Red.

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Ivy League women’s basketball preseason power rankings

Ivy Hoops Online’s writing staff voted on where all eight Ivy women’s and men’s basketball teams would end up for the 2019-20 season. Our projected order of finish for the women:

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WNIT previews: Penn vs. American, Harvard vs. Drexel

First Round (The Palestra, Philadelphia)
Penn (23-6, 12-2 Ivy, Regular Season Co-Champions) vs American (22-10, 16-2 Patriot, Regular Season Co-Champions)
Friday 7:00 p.m., Penn Athletics Facebook

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IHO 2018-19 Women’s All-Ivy Awards

If you missed the Ivy League’s own women’s All-Ivy awards, you can find them here. As selected by Ivy Hoops Online’s contributors, here are the IHO 2018-19 Women’s All-Ivy Awards:

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Ivy League Women’s Tournament semifinal preview – No. 3 Harvard vs. No. 2 Penn

No. 3 Harvard (16-11, 9-5 Ivy) vs. No. 2 Penn (22-5, 12-2) Sat., 8:30 p.m. (estimated) ESPN3

Season Series – Split 1-1
2/16/19 at Harvard; Harvard wins 80-72 2OT
3/1/19 at Penn; Penn wins 75-70

Streaks
Penn: won four in a row and 13 of its last 15
Harvard: won two in a row and five of its last seven

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