Penn men’s basketball made it official on Thursday, revealing that the school has hired Class of 1982 alum Fran McCaffery as its head coach.
At first glance, the deal looks like a win-win for both sides. The Quakers get a proven high-major winner and one of the best offensive coaches in the country to revitalize the program and the alumni base. For the 65-year-old McCaffery, the homecoming job is a soft landing after a 15-season run at Iowa. McCaffery can recruit and scheme what will presumably be his last collegiate coaching job without the pressure-cooker environment inherent to power conference basketball these days.
There will be much ink to spill about McCaffery in the coming days and weeks, but in the short term, here are a few thoughts about the hire I’ve jotted down:
In a historic season of firsts, the Columbia women’s basketball team couldn’t get a NCAA Tournament Round of 64 win, falling on Saturday afternoon to the West Virginia Mountaineers, 78-59, in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Columbia is used to turning over its opponents with relentless full court pressure, but there’s an old saying in basketball that team’s that press don’t like to be pressed themselves, and that adage proved correct on Saturday as West Virginia’s signature zone press wreaked havoc on the Lions, forcing 25 turnovers, including 11 in the first quarter.
“West Virginia is a great team and a super-unique team in the women’s game,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith said postgame. “I think what they do not a lot of teams do, right, and especially defensively. March Madness is who can make the other team the most uncomfortable, and I thought they did that successfully to start the game. You know, forcing 11 turnovers.”
The Columbia women’s basketball team took on Washington in a First Four game won by the Lions, 63-60, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Thursday night. (Columbia Athletics)
Twenty minutes from a second straight defeat in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four, the Columbia women’s basketball team “heard what they needed to hear” from coach Megan Griffith and overcame a 13-point deficit to defeat Washington 63-60 at Carmichael Arena on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Thursday night.
Thursday night’s NCAA victory, the first ever for the Lions’ program, propelled Columbia (24-6) into a first-round matchup against No. 6 West Virginia on Saturday at 2 p.m. on ESPNEWS. The Huskies (19-14), making their first appearance in the Big Dance since 2017, look to use this experience as motivation for next season.
Princeton’s corps of forwards is all smiles in a pregame huddle at the Ivy League Tournament in Providence, RI on Friday. (Steve Silverman | Ivy Hoops Online)
The Ivy League’s dream of a three-bid Ivy came to fruition on Sunday night when the final invitation to the Big Dance went to the Princeton Tigers.
“It’s awesome,” Princeton coach Carla Berube told reporters on Monday afternoon. “We have a email chain going with the whole Ivy League and head coaches and, yeah, I mean, we’re thrilled, but we’re not shocked or surprised, and we know just the level of basketball and how talented our student athletes are. And we’re going about it the right way with our nonconference schedules and how we have to build that up.”
Princeton, a No. 11 seed, will face off in a play-in game against Iowa State, also a No. 11 seed, in the opening game of the NCAA Tournament on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET in South Bend, Ind. The winner will face No. 6 Michigan on Friday.
Here are three thoughts about Princeton’s bid and tomorrow’s matchup against the Iowa State Cyclones:
The Ivy League’s men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament representatives are set, with a record-high four of them thanks to #3bidivy achieved on the women’s side:
James Jones led Yale men’s basketball to its second ever NCAA Tournament win last week. (James Jones’s Twitter page)
Ivy Hoops Online caught up with Yale coach James Jones Wednesday following his return from Spokane, Wash., where his team notched the second ever NCAA Tournament win in program history last week with a triumph over Auburn before falling to San Diego State in the Round of 32:
Yale senior forward Matt Knowling, senior guard August Mahoney and coach James Jones sit for their postgame press conference following an 85-57 loss to San Diego State Sunday night in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. (March Madness video broadcast)
No. 13 Yale’s NCAA Tournament run ended with a second-round thud Sunday night local time in Spokane, Wash. in an 85-57 loss to No. 5 San Diego State.
No. 9 Princeton and No. 8 West Virginia tip off in their NCAA Tournament opening-round matchup Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. (Photo by Steve Silverman)
IOWA CITY, Iowa – No. 9 Princeton women’s basketball team ran into a buzzsaw in the first round of the 2024 women’s NCAA Tournament, falling to No. 8 West Virginia, 63-53, Saturday in Iowa City.
The loss ended an outstanding season for Princeton and marked the close of an era for a historic triumvirate of senior co-captains–Kailtyn Chen, Ellie Mitchell, and Chet Nweke–who led the program to new heights during their sensational careers at Old Nassau.
The Tigers (25-5, 15-1 Ivy) came into this contest against the Mountaineers (25-7, Big 12 13-7) filled with confidence and high hopes. And it first, it looked as though those hopes might be vindicated.
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Greetings from Iowa City, Iowa, the heartland of girls and women’s basketball.
Your faithful Ivy Hoops Online correspondent grew up in the Hawkeye State, so covering Princeton women’s basketball at this venue has been a nice homecoming for me. In fact, the last time I visited Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City was for a Boston concert with a group of my high school buddies 45 years ago. To be honest, I barely remember the concert, other than it was loud.
But one thing I remember clearly from those long ago days is how important girls’ high school basketball was to the state of Iowa. Back then, the girls’ game was quite different than today. Each team played six players at a time, three on offense and three on defense, and neither the offensive nor the defensive players were allowed to cross the half-court line.
Women’s basketball has come a long way since then, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the passion for the sport. When I was growing up here, no event was more important to the people of Iowa than the girls’ high school basketball tournament, which took place every year at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in downtown Des Moines.
Now, the chief passion in the state is Caitlin Clark and the University of Iowa women’s basketball team. The No. 1 Hawkeyes kick off the first round of games here Saturday afternoon against the No. 16 Holy Cross Crusaders. Later in the day, the No. 9 Princeton Tigers will face off against the No. 8 West Virginia Mountaineers.
Surrounded by photographers, Caitlin Clark walks down the hallway of Carver-Hawkeye Arena to a pregame press conference. (Photo by Steve Silverman)
How big of a circus is the Caitlin Clark show here in Iowa City? So big, that a gaggle of cameramen and reporters from all over the nation this morning staked out the Iowa women’s locker room in the bowels of Carver-Hawkeye Arena just to get a glimpse of the star player as she walked down the hallway to the team’s pregame day press conference. Then, after the player part of the press conference ended and it was time for coach Lisa Bluder to take questions from the media, nearly every reporter shuffled out of the room, leaving only yours truly and a couple of others to ask questions of the person who actually runs the team.
Here are some other impressions, news, and notes from Iowa City on the day before the round one games begin:
