Palestra – Page 15 – Ivy Hoops Online

Steve Donahue: The Reconstructionist

November 5, 2015November 4, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

Does this look like a man ready to turn around Penn basketball? Why yes, yes it does. — Does this look like a man ready to turn around Penn basketball? Why yes, yes he does.

It is ironic that Steve Donahue has become our new head coach.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with the choice. After all, this has to be his dream job. A Philly guy with Quaker DNA who has a deep respect, if not love, for the hoop traditions of the city, returns as leader to the campus that once nurtured his coaching skills as a young assistant. In fact, he was so enamored with his new position that in his introductory press conference he said, “This place is one that has everything I ever wanted in an institution. I am a Big 5 coach. There are only five of us. To imagine that I am one of them, at this institution, is just incredible.”

Sizing up Penn's 2015-16 schedule

December 24, 2015August 13, 2015 by Mike Tony

The Steve Donahue era is here, and it’s almost palpable with Thursday’s release of the 2015-16 Penn basketball schedule.

And it’s interesting, though not much different from past schedules. We have the obligatory homecoming trip, this time a trip home at Washington on Sat., Nov. 21 for senior center Darien Nelson-Henry and junior guard Matt Poplawski both of whom are from the Seattle area. Good for them, and good on the program for providing that Evergreen State opportunity.

What’s not so obligatory? Playing at Drexel.

That’s right, the Daskalakis Athletic Center, where Steve Bilsky forbade the Quakers from playing during his run as athletic director, excepting one 2008 matchup.

Yale all-time moment No. 1: Elis share the 2015 title

December 28, 2015July 24, 2015 by Richard Kent

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We did Yale next by request of Justin Sears:

Hey @IvyHoopsOnline , would it be too much to ask if Yale could go next? We need some good vibes in New Haven right now. #WorthAShotToAsk

— Justin Sears (@Jussears5) July 10, 2015

We all know the 2014-15 Yale men”s basketball season didn”t have a storybook ending. Just four months ago, Harvard edged out Yale at the Palestra, 53-51, in an already legendarily back-and-forth Ivy playoff game after the Bulldogs let a last-second lead literally slip away at Dartmouth that would have clinched the Elis” first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1962. Then the NIT online casino inexplicably slipped away too.

Yale all-time moment No. 5: Bulldogs’ 1961-62 season

July 20, 2015 by Richard Kent

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

The 1961-62 Yale Bulldogs are undoubtedly one of the greatest teams in school history, finishing 13-1 in Ivy play and 18-6 overall while securing the Ivy League championship, the program’s second in a six-year span.

Penn all-time moment No. 6: The Palestra opens in 1927

July 3, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

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

Do you know why the other seven Ivy schools will always suck even if they win? Because they play their games in high school gyms.

I ask you, would Duke still be “Duke” if they played at Levien, or the Alfred E. Newman Senior Citizen Center or that bullshit place where Harvard plays? (By the way, Cameron Indoor was designed by the same architectural firm as the Palestra. That’s why they look the same.) If clothes make the man, then the stadium makes the team. In this arena Penn has, and never will have, any competition. The Palestra is called “The Cathedral of Basketball” with good reason. Since it was built, Penn’s home court has hosted more games, more visiting teams and more NCAA Tournaments than any other facility in the country. It is unquestionably the “birthplace of college basketball.”

Big 5 doubleheader at the Palestra, anyone?

July 2, 2015 by Mike Tony

A Big 5 doubleheader could be a couple of agreements away.

Marc Narducci of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported this afternoon that there is “an effort” to hold a Big 5 doubleheader at the Palestra with Penn facing St. Joseph’s and Temple squaring off with La Salle.

Narducci’s source said there is nothing definitive at the moment, though there has been discussion of scheduling the games during the week, sometime after Martin Luther King Day (Jan. 18, 2016).

As the Inquirer notes, Penn’s 56-52 win over St. Joseph’s on Jan. 24 drew a crowd of 8,538 last season, while Temple’s 58-57 win over La Salle at the Palestra on Dec. 6 drew 7,445.

Big 5 executive director Steve Bilsky, who officially retired as Penn athletic director a year ago Tuesday, said in February that he envisioned a Big 5 week with a banquet the night before, an alumni game, students from the schools playing against each other, sponsorships and television – the whole works, obviously.

The Big 5 round-robin city series ended in 1991 but was brought back in 1999. ESPN broadcasted the first game of Saturday’s Big 5 doubleheader between La Salle and Temple.

What the Inquirer doesn’t mention is that the doubleheader talks were clearly motivated by the Ancient Quaker’s post today on the formation of the Philadelphia Big 5. Clearly. No coincidence or anything.

Penn all-time moment No. 7: Formation of the Philadelphia Big 5

July 2, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

The Big 5 is a Penn creation. It was conceived by Penn athletic director Jerry Ford and announced by University President Gaylord Harnwell at Houston Hall in 1954. The Quaker sports staff then helped formulate the round robin format between Temple, St. Joes, Villanova, LaSalle and Penn. Since that time Penn basketball really has had two seasons, the Ivy and the Big 5. Of course the Ivy title provides the coveted entry to The Dance, but the Big 5 is often just as important. It is Philly bragging rights in a town that loves college basketball. Most years, it was not at all unusual for four out of the five schools to make the NCAA Tournament; Such was the high level of play. Naturally the best intra-city hoops rivalry in the nation deserves a special place to perform and the Palestra is the perfect venue. No other arena in the country, despite their larger size and glitzy sterility, can possibly provide the intimacy for such historical competition.

Princeton all-time moment No. 4: 1997-98 Ivy champions

June 23, 2015 by Toothless Tiger

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We’re starting with Princeton because that’s where Joseph Stalin’s daughter defected to. In Soviet Russia as in the United States, Princeton offense runs you!

Bill Carmody, an honorary member of the Class of 1975, joined Pete Carril’s staff in 1982. He spent the next 14 productive and mostly glorious seasons watching and learning. When Carril decided to retire after winning his final Ivy title on a heart-stopping three pointer by Sydney Johnson in a playoff against Penn (who else?), he made it known that no one was better qualified to succeed him than Bill Carmody.

Bill’s all too-brief four year tenure as head coach was among the most dominant periods ever in the long history of Tiger hoops. His overall record was 92-25. In the Ivy League he was 50-6, including a remarkable 28-0 in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

Penn all-time moment No. 11: A Final Four ‘first’

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Warning – the following post is NOT a Princeton article. It’s just a break from the Princeton countdown we’ve been doing.

Winston Churchill once said that if the British Empire were to last a thousand years, the Battle of Britain would be its finest hour. As far as I can see, ol’ Winny had it easy. I mean, what is British history anyway? Chaucer, afternoon tea, the Magna Carta, David Beckham, Shakespeare, the Hundred Years’ War, and Wham! at Wembley Stadium are mere footnotes in the evolution of the human species. (I did in fact attend the 1985 Wham! Concert in my freshly coifed Flock of Seagulls hairdo and furtively wept at George Michael’s moving rendition of “Careless Whisper” – totally awesome.) Naturally, with a feeble heritage like this, one could easily elucidate its finest hour.

I, however, have been tasked with an immanently more daunting mission: chronicling the Top 10 Moments in Pennsylvania Basketball’s glorious history. Where to begin? The third-ranked 1971 team? The Final Four? 25 Ivy Titles?

A letter to Grace Calhoun

February 18, 2015February 18, 2015 by The Ancient Quaker

Dear Dr. Calhoun,

I have seen a lot of Penn Basketball over my lifetime. Thus I must say Dave Zeitlin’s great piece in the Pennsylvania Gazette about the 2005 Penn-Princeton game, filled me with much wistful melancholy.

First, a confession: I was more than 100 miles away from the Palestra on game day. Instead of being in the stands, I was sitting in my car on that cold, rainy night in Rockaway Beach Queens near JFK Airport listening to the Princeton broadcast as it faded in and out across my car radio. Unimpeded by the tall buildings of Manhattan and beamed over a frigid New York Bay, I knew from years of experience that this secluded landmark could adequately receive a reasonable but faint signal from the New Jersey hinterlands. To get to my vantage point I took a 20-mile detour on my way home from work. If that’s not fandom I don’t know what is.