Yale men’s basketball releases 2019-20 schedule

Yale Athletics announced an intriguing 2019-2020 schedule for the defending Ivy League regular season co-champion and Ivy Tournament title winning Bulldogs Friday.

The 16 game nonconference schedule, which features 14 Division I matchups, includes contests against power conference foes North Carolina, Penn State, Oklahoma State and Clemson.

The Elis will open the season on the road at Stony Brook on November 5, a homecoming for the team’s Long Island born-and-raised coach.  On November 8, they will raise the Ivy banners at the Lee Amphitheater against Division III Oberlin, which is coached by former Yale player Isaiah Cavaco.

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Miye Oni shines in Utah Jazz’s third Summer League game

Miye Oni excelled for the Utah Jazz in its third and final Salt Lake City Summer League game Wednesday night, breaking out with an impressive performance after contributing little offensively in the Jazz’s first game and not playing at all in the second.

Oni contributed 17 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block as the Jazz posted an 84-81 win over the San Antonio Spurs at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

“The coaches gave me a lot of confidence to just go out there and play my game,” Oni said according to the Deseret News. “I was a little passive in Game 1. I thought I was just trying to let the game come to me maybe a little too much, so I wanted to take the opportunities I had still within the offense and just play good team basketball. I felt like we did that tonight.”

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Miye Oni’s outlook with the Utah Jazz

Miye Oni was not only selected in the NBA Draft but is headed to a team in the Utah Jazz that has roster space.

KSL.com noted in an article Friday that the franchise is in need of players to fill its roster after dealing Grayson Allen, Kyle Korver and Jae Crowder to the Memphis Grizzlies for Mike Conley two days prior.

A 2016 study by SLC Dunk, SB Nation’s Utah Jazz community,  found that for the 20 years between the 1996 NBA Draft and the 2015 NBA Draft, 401 of 600 second-round picks saw at least one game at the NBA level.

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Ivy hoops roundup – June 21, 2019

  • Addie Micir is headed for Lehigh, which announced Wednesday that Micir is leaving Princeton to join the Mountain Hawks’ coaching staff as an associate head coach. Micir was an assistant under Courtney Banghart at Princeton last season following five seasons as an assistant at Dartmouth. Micir was 2011 Ivy Player of the Year at Princeton, earning her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Princeton in 2011 and her master’s degree in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth in 2018. Micir’s departure from Princeton was announced two days after new Princeton head coach Carla Berube’s introductory press conference. Berube will have to hire an all new assistant coaching staff after the recent departures of assistant coach Carrie Moore and director of basketball operations Jessica Imhof with Banghart to North Carolina and assistant coach Cinnamon Lister to UC Irvine.
  • Brown’s Mike Martin will be joining USA Basketball as an assistant coach for the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru from July 31 through August 4.  Martin, the 2019 Ivy League Coach of the Year, and Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard will work under the head coaching leadership of Providence College’s Ed Cooley.
    The team will practice at the Ruane Development Center on the Providence College campus from July 21 through July 26 before they head off to Peru.  The US will be in Pool A against the Virgin Islands on July 31, followed by games against Venezuela on August 1 and Puerto Rico on August 2.  The medal round play will be held on August 3-4.
  • Bella Alarie, the 2017 and 2018 Ivy League Player of the Year, will be a part of USA Basketball’s Pan American team on the women’s side.  While she’s waiting for that tournament, she continues her work on USA Basketball’s 3×3 team. This past weekend, her team came in third place in the 3×3 event in Turin, Italy.  They went 2-1 in group play, defeating the Czech Republic and Canada, but losing to France.  The Stars & Stripes defeating Mongolia in the quarterfinals before losing to the hosts, 16-12.
    After two tournaments, Alarie is sixth in scoring with 35 points, and her team finds themselves in second place overall with 115 points, 35 points behind France.  The US will next head to Poitiers, France (July 5-6), Ekaterinburg, Russia (July 9-10) and Lignano, Italy (July 13-14).

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Miye Oni becomes first Ivy player selected in NBA Draft since 1995

Miye Oni took game MVP honors after Yale’s 77-73 win over Miami on Dec. 1 Hoophall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena, impressing NBA scouts with his performance. (Next Ones)

The wait felt interminable.

For Miye Oni and supporters, it stretched five hours throughout nearly the entire NBA Draft; for Ivy League basketball at large, it lasted 24 years.

But early Friday morning, the wait ended as Oni, who chose last month to remain eligible for the NBA Draft and leave Yale after his junior season despite an uncertain draft stock, became the first Ivy League hoopster selected in the NBA Draft since Jerome Allen was taken 49th by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1995.

Oni was selected 58th by the Golden State Warriors but was picked for the Utah Jazz, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

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Ivy hoops roundup – June 6, 2019

  • Following a 11-plus week paid suspension, Auburn University reinstated former Penn assistant coach Ira Bowman to his similar position on Saturday afternoon.  The 1996 Ivy League Player of the Year was suspended by Auburn just before the SEC Tournament, after former Penn coach Jerome Allen testified that Bowman was involved in a scheme resulting in bribes by Florida businessman Philip Esformes to get his son, Morris Esformes, on the basketball roster for the fall of 2015.
    Sam Blum of AL.com wrote that an Auburn athletics spokesman confirmed the news but did not have the results of the school’s investigation or information regarding the reasoning for Bowman’s reinstatement.  AL.com has filed an open records request to obtain this information.  Bowman returned to his reported $250,000 a year job, just in time to help with one of the biggest recruiting weekends in program history.
    Kevin Bonner, Penn’s senior associate athletic director, governance and administration, did not respond to an email from IHO regarding the reinstatement, the Auburn investigation or any Penn investigation of Bowman.

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Miye Oni chooses to remain eligible for NBA Draft, leave Yale

Miye Oni took game MVP honors after Yale’s 77-73 win over Miami on Dec. 1 Hoophall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena. (Next Ones)

Miye Oni has made his decision, and he’s chasing his dream.

Yale Athletics announced Friday that Oni has elected to remain eligible for the NBA Draft to pursue his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA.

So his Yale basketball career is over.

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 21, 2019

  • Courtney Banghart made her first assistant coaching decision on Tuesday, bringing former Princeton assistant coach Carrie Moore to Chapel Hill.  In addition to being an assistant at North Carolina, Moore will also assume the role of recruiting coordinator.  She worked for Banghart as the Tigers’ Director of Basketball Operations from 2008 – 2010 and an assistant from 2016-2019.  From 2010-2015, Moore served as an assistant at Creighton.
    “She has been a critical teammate with all parts of the Princeton program, and brings talent, compassion, enthusiasm, hard work, knowledge, and authentic care for others to her everyday,” Banghart told North Carolina Athletics.  “She is a difference maker and simply put, I’m better when having her by my side.”

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Yale extends James Jones’s contract through 2025-26

Following a season in which he led Yale back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016 and became a finalist for the St. John’s coaching job, James Jones was rewarded this week with a contract extension that will keep him in New Haven until the conclusion of the 2025-26 season.

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Ivy hoops roundup – May 4, 2019

Another week full of Ivy news, with none bigger than Courtney Banghart’s move from Princeton to North Carolina.  The former Big Green All-Ivy guard and Tigers head coach signed a five-year contract to take over a Tar Heels program that needs a new start.  Per Jeff Gravely of WRAL in Raleigh, Banghart’s contract starts at $650,000 in 2019-2020 and increases to $730,000 in 2024-2025.  Athletic and academic bonuses are included that can increase the yearly salary by $10,000 to $470,000.

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