Reading the Ivy tea leaves – Brown roundup

Ian Halpern, IHO founder and writer:

Most looking forward to: Watching this team when they get out and run. They have a lot of backcourt talent and should be very fun to watch when they push the tempo and the threes are falling.

Expectations: Relying on youth is a dangerous proposition in the Ivy League. The Bears have a few too many newcomers to expect them to compete for a title, but I think Brown will surprise some people and win a few games they aren’t expected to. Ultimately, I expect a mid-conference finish within a game of .500.

Kevin McNamara, Providence Journal sportswriter:

For Brown to contend in the Ivies this season, we’ll have to see the very best of big man Cedric Kuakumensah. Cedric has shown superlative defensive effort for three years but this season Mike Martin needs his center to dominate on both ends of the floor. Kuakumensah is one of four returning starters at Brown and that experience must show through on a consistent basis. Point guard Tavon Blackmon made big gains last season and could emerge as one of the top guards in the Ivy this season.

Join in the fun. What do you expect from the Brown Bears in 2015-16? Kuakumensah-led sleeper contention for the Ivy crown? Another 10-loss conference campaign? Let us know in the comments below.

Brown Season Preview – Get Out and Run

Coach Mike Martin enters his fourth season at the helm for the Bears, looking to improve on last season’s 4-10 Ivy record. With Martin’s early recruits coming of age and the addition of some under-the-radar talent, there’s reason for optimism in Providence.

First and foremost, this is Cedric Kuakumensah’s team, as the imposing senior center and captain looks to build upon the greatest defensive reputation in the league. Outside of Kuakumensah, the Bears will look to replace the contributions of reliable big man, Rafael Maia, and they’ll look to a young cast to do so. Watch out for Travis Fuller, the 6-9 freshman from Encinitas, Calif.  The early returns are positive on Fuller, as the skilled big man looks to fill Maia’s void in the frontcourt.

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Brown all-time moment No. 2: Winning at Princeton for the first time

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Brown is next because losing records at Jadwin were meant to be broken. 

A lot of Brown supporters fell in love with the program all over again on Valentine”s Day 2003, a day that provided definitive proof that the Bears were back after years of struggling prior to coach Glen Miller taking over four years prior.

That day, Brown won at Princeton for the first time ever in 53 tries.

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Brown all-time moment No. 6: Jason Forte named 2004 Ivy Player of the Year

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Brown is next because Nice Slice is nice.

One of the most athletic players in the history of the Ivy League, Jason Forte was a three-time first-team All-Ivy guard who lit up opposing defenses on a nightly basis. Forte was as versatile as he was athletic. He led the Ivy League in steals as a sophomore, assists as a junior, points as a senior and free throws as a sophomore and senior.

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IHO Power Poll – Feb. 2

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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Brown Roster Preview – 2014-15 Edition

I’m bullish on the Bears.

Yes, All-Everything Sean McGonagill is gone, and so is his ball distribution, three-point shooting, offensive potency from anywhere on the court and, well, everything! But the Bears will be better than last year because they’ll be more well-rounded in 2014-15 from inside out, the single-most underrated team in the Ivy League.

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Brown Rolls Yale 73-56

The Bears looked sharp on Saturday at the Pizzitola, hammering Yale 73-56 and moving to 1-1.
The Bears looked sharp on Saturday at the Pizzitola, hammering Yale 73-56 and moving to 1-1.

Last weekend’s Pizzitola Center reversal closed the book on yet another Yale-Brown split, the sixth in nine straight years of Bulldog-Bear back-to-back conference openers. The main man responsible for turning the previous week’s result around for the Bears: the unstoppable Sean McGonagill whose hot hand (29 points on 8-11 FG, 7-9 3PT) singlehandedly stopped a late Yale run and iced the game for Bruno. In what might have been their most complete effort of the year, the home team looked organized, prepared, and sharp– assisting on 19 of 27 field goals, including five impressive dimes from big man Rafael Maia.

The offense functioned exactly the way Brown fans had hoped it would entering this season with freshman Tavon Blackmon doing a solid job handling duties at the point (7 assists), while McGonagill was allowed to focus on pouring in shots from every corner of the floor. Dockery Walker provided an energetic spark off the bench with 10 points on 5-6 shooting, and Steve Spieth was all over the court with 9 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals.

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Send him out, Jerome?

Jerome Allen is suddenly on the hot seat in Philly after the Quakers' disappointing start and a changing of the guard in the Athletic Department at Penn.
Jerome Allen is suddenly on the hot seat in Philly after the Quakers’ disappointing start and a changing of the guard in the Athletic Department at Penn.

Thanks to the Big Ten Network, the TV transmission of the Quakers’ embarrassing blowout loss to Iowa should now be somewhere in the vicinity of the sun’s Oort Cloud, just a few hundred billion miles behind the transmission of their mostly noncompetitive loss to Penn State just a few days before. Courtesy of these electrometric waves moving at the speed of light, Penn’s hoops futility will now be preserved for eternity. There is apparently a reason why it is so quiet in space— as on Earth, nobody up there wants to see the kind of dysfunctional brand of basketball that the Quakers have been playing.

Last year, there were potential excuses aplenty as to why the team wasn’t winning and they were not at all unreasonable given the circumstances: the team was young, there was little depth, star players were injured, and most of the assistant coaches had left for other programs. On the other hand, this was supposed to be the year that Jerome finally put it all together with “his” guys. This was supposed to be the year the Quakers took that “next step” back to respectability. This was supposed to be the year they would once again challenge for the Ivy title. But instead of commensurate team growth and maturity what have we seen? The exact same thing as last year: too many turnovers, too many fouls, lackadaisical defense, bonehead passing, poor overall team play, terrible rebounding, wildly inconsistent scoring, far too much Henry Brooks, and most disturbing of all, the absolutely inexcusable apparent lack of desire.  Here are some of the post-game quotes following the loss to Lafayette, a formerly 0-5 team:

 “We need somebody that wants to defend, that’s all they want to do.”

“We just didn’t have the mentality for [rebounding] today… They imposed their will and we didn’t really show up. They did a great job on rebounds today.”

“We get a possession where there’s two guys locked in and the other three guys are out to lunch.”

I ask you: Are these the comments of a championship team? Better yet, are these the attributes of a championship team? Aside from the blowout win over Niagara (which at this point I consider to be nothing more than an aberration), a generally bad team aside from Antoine Mason, these remarks unfortunately have already become a recurring theme both last year and throughout this young season. Unlike his Ivy coaching colleagues namely, Messieurs Henderson, Martin and Smith for example,   Jerome is somehow not getting “the message” through to his now more seasoned charges.

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Checking in on…Brown

The Bears, despite their youth, have looked great so far this season. Will their soft non-conference schedule come back to bite them?
The Bears, despite their youth, have looked great so far this season. Will their soft non-conference schedule come back to bite them?

Today’s Ivy League update by our friends over at Big Apple Buckets inspired me to sit down and reflect on what’s been a very eventful, and ultimately positive beginning to the season for the Brown Bears. A few weeks ago, we knew that the fate of this team would depend largely on how game-ready the six freshmen would be.

The good news: The Bears have passed the eye-test. They have a balanced team with a very strong frontcourt and a star scorer in McGonagill who has been an offensive wizard thus far. Sporting an obscene offensive efficiency rating of 126.2, Professor McGonagill is clearly benefitting from the move to the 2, though he continues to bring the ball up the court quite often. Kuakumensah is back to his Defensive Player of the Year award-winning ways, pulling down rebounds and blocking shots at an elite national level. Foul trouble has plagued the sophomore too often though, and his minutes have suffered as a result. Rafael Maia continues his assault on the offensive glass, pulling in 18% of possible offensive rebounds. Most importantly, the freshmen are clearly talented and will only get better (though Norman Hobbie’s shooting will certainly regress a bit). The Bears have won three in a row on the road and they were an inch from beating Providence for a second straight year.

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Season Preview: Brown Bears

A dominant frontcourt and an all-league guard will lead the Bears into battle in 2013-14. Does Brown have the talent at the other two positions to compete this season?
A dominant frontcourt and an all-league guard will lead the Bears into battle in 2013-14. Does Brown have the talent at the other two positions to compete this season?
In 2012-13: 7-7, 13-15, 4th place, No Postseason.

A Look Back

In Coach Martin’s first season at the helm, the Bears overcame an unthinkable number of obstacles, playing at times with just seven healthy players, to finish top half for the first time since 2007-08. A dangerous and talented team when everyone was healthy (it was quite a rare occurrence), Brown seemed on the verge of something great in 2012-13. A thrilling final-minute comeback against crosstown rival Providence pushed the Bears to new heights as Tucker Halpern’s eighth three pointer splashed through the nylon in the final seconds, sending the Pizzatola Center into delirium and shock. They followed that up with a quality overtime victory over eventual MAAC champions, Niagara.

Once Ivy play came though, the short roster started to take its toll. Four of the Bears’ seven conference losses were in overtime or by one possession. Still, the players lifted one another up when someone had an off-night.

Against Columbia at the Pitz, Sean McGonagill, Stephen Albrecht, and Halpern combined to go 1-15 from the field for four total points, yet the Bears managed to eek out a win on the backs of Matt Sullivan (27 points, 5 steals) and Cedric Kuakumensah (19 points, 7 rebounds). Other nights, it was McGonagill carrying the load, like on Senior Night when the Bears pounded Princeton to clinch 4th place behind 24 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists from the sophomore point guard. Albrecht pitched in with 17 points and 5 rebounds despite a chronic back injury. It was perhaps the gutsiest .500 season in recent Ivy history.

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