NCAA

Kent: Does Ivy League hear alarm bells with another departure?

by

With the news that Alexander Lesburt Jr. is pulling a Caden Pierce at Brown men’s basketball, sitting out his senior season and entering the portal, the alarm bells are getting louder and louder.

First, as to Lesburt. He was expected to be a key player for Mike Martin after averaging 10.3 points and 3.6 rebounds per game last season and is a skilled three-point shooter. But he is no longer on the team, Brown announced Tuesday, noting he left the program to preserve his final year of eligibility.

Numerous Ivy players in basketball and other sports are exploring this three-year graduation route to obtain a coveted Ivy League degree and get another payday year elsewhere.

Read more

Xaivian Lee’s portaling leaves Princeton men’s basketball at a crossroads

by
Princeton junior guard Xaivian Lee (1) drives to the hoop against Yale sophomore center Samson Aleton (10) at the Ivy League Tournament in Providence, R.I. on March 15, 2025. (Steve Silverman | Ivy Hoops Online)

The Xaivian Lee era at Princeton appears to be over.

According to a report posted today by ESPN, the First-Team All-Ivy junior guard has entered the transfer portal. The report states that Lee will also enter the NBA Draft while simultaneously keeping his options open to transfer to another program for his final year of collegiate eligibility.

A year ago, Lee similarly tested the NBA Draft waters before returning to Princeton for his junior year.

Lee’s likely departure from Princeton, while not entirely unexpected, is the latest development in what already is shaping up to be a  tumultuous offseason for the Princeton men’s basketball program.

Read more

Breaking down the NLRB decision finding Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees

by

A National Labor Relations Board director ordered a union election for 15 Dartmouth men’s basketball players Monday in a ruling that found the players are employees of the university.

The result could be the first labor union for NCAA athletes.

Read more

Not just nitpicking over NET-picking

by
NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt (MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference)

Editor’s note: Dan Gavitt is NCAA senior vice president of basketball.

Hey Dan, I’m back. It’s been a few weeks since my last note to you on the repugnant new NIT policy eliminating the automatic bid for mid-major conference champions who do not win their conference tournaments.

I have another request. It’s about that NET thing. Time to scrap it, or at least modify it. It only favors the big boys. You know that. We know that. Everyone knows that.

The biggest problem is the TVI (team value index), which is meant to reward teams for beating quality opponents. How does it work with teams who can’t get quadrant-one and even quadrant-two-type games out of conference, even on the road?

Read more

Not just nitpicking over NIT-picking

by
Dan Gavitt is NCAA senior vice president of basketball and NIT board chair. (MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference)

Editor’s note: Dan Gavitt is the son of the great Dave Gavitt, the driving force behind the creation of the Big East. The younger Gavitt is NIT board chair and NCAA senior vice president of basketball, and he has backed a new NIT policy which eliminates the automatic bid for mid-major conference champions who do not win their conference tournaments.

Dear Dan:

What would your father say?

Read more

A close look at Dartmouth men’s basketball’s unionization effort

by

Nearly a decade ago, members of the Northwestern football team tried to unionize.

The National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency charged with protecting employees’ rights to organize and determining whether to have unions as their bargaining representatives, voted unanimously in Aug. 2015 to decline to assert jurisdiction in the case. The NLRB held that asserting jurisdiction over a single team wouldn’t promote stability in labor relations league-wide, as the NCAA and conference maintain significant control over individual teams.

The NLRB noted the decision applied only to the players in the case and didn’t preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future.

Fast forward to 2021, when the United States Supreme Court decided in a 9-0 ruling that antitrust laws prohibit the NCAA from limiting its Division I schools from offering “education-related compensation or benefits” to student-athletes.

Read more

Inside Ivy Hoops 4-11-23

by

Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony and IHO writer Rob Browne discuss memorable postseason runs for Princeton men’s and women’s basketball and Columbia and Harvard in the WNIT, the new “Big 5” (really City 6) Classic, the prospect and potential impact of athletic scholarships for Ivy hoopsters and much more:

Uncertainty grows for Ivy League aid after antitrust exemption expires

by

Congress did something of great significance to Ivy League sports Friday.

It did nothing at all.

Congress allowed a section of the Higher Education Act allowing key antitrust protection for the Ivy League to expire. The expiration increases the Ivy League’s exposure to legal challenges to its refusal to grant academic and athletic scholarships.

Read more

Listen: NCAA’s approach to name, image and likeness and Ivy League antitrust exemption expiration

by

Ivy Hoops Online contributor and Manhattanville College sports law professor Richard Kent joined Sports Talk with John & Jimmy on 99.1 The Sports Animal WNML-FM 99.1/AM 990 Monday to discuss the NCAA’s name, image and likeness policy approach, the outlook for reform after the Ivy League’s antitrust exemption expires later this year and more: