Home of the Roundball Poets
With about six weeks of play in the books, we thought it was time to look back at the league”s common opponents to see if we could glean any knowledge from what”s happened on the court so far. Everyone knows that the transitive property carries limited weight in sports, but it”s still interesting to see how a team fares against multiple conference foes. Without further ado…
Welcome to the first IHO Power Poll (based on games through 12/16/11). Please note that these rankings are based off of our best guesses of how the Ivy League picture will sort itself out. We always love to hear your gripes and whines in the comments below.
The Ivy League shook off its sluggish start to the season this weekend, going 6-1 and improving to 10-13 against Division-I opponents. This weekend also saw Brown, Dartmouth, and Princeton pick up their first D-1 wins of the season, while Harvard continues to roll over inferior opponents, no matter what coast the Crimson is playing on.
Brown, Sean McGonagill: The Bears’ sophomore point guard picked up where he left off last season with an impressive 20 point (7-12 shooting), 10 assist performance in a 86-66 victory against D-III Johnson & Wales.
Columbia, Blaise Staab: Staab came out of nowhere to be the bright spot for Columbia on a night when Agho and Barbour couldn’t finish at the rim. Staab, who played a grand total of 70 minutes in his first three years in New York, finished with a double-double (11 points, 12 rebounds) and looked comfortable mixing it up with the nation’s best in Storrs, CT during the Lions’ respectable 70-57 loss.
Penn, Zack Rosen: Rosen had a monster night for the Quakers, tallying 26 points on 10-16 shooting, including 4-6 from range. The Quakers put UMBC away early in the second half behind some shutdown defense en route to a 59-45 triumph.
Yale, Greg Mangano and Reggie Willhite: The Bulldogs held off a late charge from CCSU to win their opener 73-69 behind 23 points and 13 rebounds from their senior star, Mangano. Captain Reggie Willhite also had a big night, dropping in 21 and adding six steals and six boards.
The Ivy League has a broad fan base scattered all over the country. With that in mind, we created the lists below for fans looking to catch a piece of live action this season.
The following is a composite Ivy League schedule of every basketball game involving an Ivy League team within approximately 90 minutes of NYC, Philly, Boston, Syracuse, and Los Angeles.
Enjoy!
Without further ado, I present the official IvyHoopsOnline preseason predictions for the 2011-2012 season.
The statistical wizard, Mike James, released his preseason player insights over at one of our favorite blogs, . The entire article is certainly worth reading as James goes into detail explaining his picks for an All-Freshman Team, All-Ivy candidates, and finally All-Ivy First and Second Teams. One pick against the grain was his prediction that Keith Wright drops to the All-Ivy Second Team from his POY perch:
“Surprise, surprise.
This is how stacked the Ivy League is at the post position. It”s not really a commentary on Wright, but more a fact of the circumstances. The Crimson”s 6″8 post won”t be required to eat up as many possessions this year with support from a healthy Kyle Casey and a presumably strong bench, which will likely hurt the counting stats that voters so often cite.
Wright”s improvement from his sophomore to junior year was monumental. While some of that was merely being healthy all year, his passing also improved and he became a more consistent force on the boards. The biggest jump, however, came in free throw rate. Wright”s most successful split prior to last season was his freshman year Ivy campaign, when he posted a FT Rate of 41.3% and his only adjusted offensive rating over 100 (102). He spent all of last season in the 40s and the results were clear – all three splits showed offensive ratings in the 110s.
Maintaining that rate will be the key to Wright matching last year”s breakout performance.”
Many sources, including NERR”s Adam Finkelstein writing for ESPN Insider”s College Basketball Recruiting blog, reported that Yale received a commitment from sought-after 6″7″ forward Justin Sears in the Class of 2012. Sears sounds like an athletic wing scorer, just what Yale could use. Finkelstein”s got the details:
“Yale scored an equally important pledge from (Plainfield, N.J./Plainfield), a highly athletic 6-7 forward who took an official visit to Stanford earlier this month.
Sears was widely recruited by the vast majority of the Ivy League throughout the summer and saw his recruitment continue to escalate as he proved himself to be a dynamic two-way player. At Yale, his biggest impact may be on the defensive end of the floor where he’ll not only be able to defend multiple positions but also be able to serve as a dominant weak-side shot-blocker. “
Over at the DP Buzz Blog, Jack Eggleston “11 weighs in from the German ProB League, giving us a little insight on how he deals with losing.
“People often say that losing builds character, that you learn more from a loss than a win. I never bought into that idea. I”m more of the George Brett school of thought when he says, “If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out.” Whether it”s a game against Princeton in the Palestra or a “friendly” game of Blokus with my roommates, losing has never sat too well with me.”
And to wrap up, we point you back to the Ivy League”s most entertaining player blog, Mid Major Chillin. This week, the crew posts about their marketing efforts with their website (business cards), as well as an environmental campaign in which the players participated that produced the following iconic image:
Blue Ribbon came out with their team-by-team previews of every Ivy League team on ESPN.com. For those of you without access to ESPN Insider, we’ll give you the quick rundown on what we thought was worthy of noting.
Up at Dartmouth, Coach Cormier thinks that a big factor in terms of whether or not the Big Green will be successful this year will be the way upperclassmen react to diminished roles as the talented freshmen begin to acclimate themselves and take minutes from the older players. The Blue Ribbon preview is optimistic, but suggests that the Big Green won’t be able to compete in the top half until these incoming recruits are juniors or seniors. Still, it’s nice to see Dartmouth headed in what seems like the right direction for the first time in years.
Out in Providence, Coach Agel is hopeful that this young Brown team will be able to get over the hump. Blue Ribbon noted that the Bears led the league in scoring with Harvard, but came in last in scoring defense. Consistency is the story for Brown because after beating Princeton and leading Harvard by double-digits in both games last year, there’s no doubt that the Bears are talented enough to compete with the league’s best. Can they improve their strength down low and bear down (pun intended) and get stops in the second halves of big games? The answer to that question will go a long way in determining where the Bears finish, as many publications have them finishing anywhere between 4th and 7th.
Down in Philadelphia, Coach Allen refuses to be content with the big leap the Quakers made out of the bottom half last year. We know the Quakers will be as good as anyone at the guard spots and on the wing with Rosen, Bernardini and Cartwright, but Allen challenged his stars in the Blue Ribbon preview to improve the weak spots in their game. Of Rosen, he said, “He does a lot for us from the locker room to the court. I wish he was a much better defensive player. But having said that, you couldn’t ask for a better leader among the group.” Of Bernardini, Allen would like to see improvement on the glass. “We all know that he’s a tremendous shooter, but he has some other natural abilities. If he exhausts them this season, it will make us a better team.” Finally, of the young Cartwright, “He’s going to be asked to have more of a leadership role this year on both ends of the floor.” Of course, the big question mark for Penn is the frontcourt where they have struggled with youth and injuries. In the final analysis, Blue Ribbon rated their backcourt an “A”, their frontcourt a “C+”, and suggested that a return to the top tier was not imminent this season.
Blue Ribbon reserved the most praise, expectedly, for Harvard and, perhaps less expectedly, for Yale. The Bulldogs were given a serious shot at winning the title this year thanks to the Mangano/Kreisberg/Morgan trio that looked so dangerous at times last year. The Bulldogs haven’t truly challenged for a title since the ’06-’07 10-4 campaign led by dynamic guard Eric Flato. This time, it’ll be the big man, Mangano, who carries the load for the Elis on the quest for a championship.
Meanwhile, over at the DP, IHO contributor Brian Kotloff and Kevin Esteves discuss expectations for Penn, suggesting this year’s version of the Quakers may see improvement on the same steep incline as Princeton did in ’09-10 under third-year Sydney Johnson.
And finally, we’ll end on a light note. Yale sophomores Jeremiah Kreisberg and Greg Kelley have a blog that they update frequently. It seems to be a pretty hilarious insider’s take on life playing basketball at a Mid-Major. Today’s post, for example, consisted of some serious excitement over receiving three pairs of brand-new Nike socks in their lockers. Check it out, it’s worth some good laughs.
A few links to take you into the weekend on Midnight Madness Day, the first official day of the season:
“The festivities, which begin at Lavietes Pavilion at 4 p.m., will include a team scrimmage and the raising of Harvard’s first-ever Ivy League championship banner.” (thecrimson.com)
The Buzz touches briefly on what the Quakers have in store for the upcoming year.
“The Quakers have arguably the best backcourt in the league with the trio of Zack Rosen, Tyler Bernardini and Miles Cartwright. But their depth in the frontcourt is a major vulnerability. The key questions for Penn will be whether senior forward Mike Howlett can stay healthy, whether sophomore big men Cam Gunter and Fran Dougherty can step up to replace graduated seniors, and whether the freshmen forwards can make an immediate impact.” (thedp.com/thebuzz)
The Trentonian talks to Mitch Henderson and takes a look at Princeton’s schedule.
“‘We are very excited,’ Henderson said. ‘All summer we have been talking as a staff about finding our identity…Everyone is looking to get to work. We have a good schedule for us and it is challenging… We want to play a style of basketball that we can be proud of.'” (www.trentonian.com)
GoLocalProv has an optimistic preview of the Brown Bears
“The Bears have reason to be optimistic as they feature a roster that may be as talented and as deep as any the program has seen since the 2002-2003 team that won 17 games and played in the NIT.” (golocalprov.com)
Rivals.com (Yahoo Sports) ranked the Ivy League 20th in their countdown of college basketball”s 32 conferences. The first half of the article consists of the usual praise for Cornell and Princeton”s recent postseason performance. The author, David Fox, seems to suggest that Harvard, this year”s prohibitive favorite, may have a different competitor to deal with at the top of the standings with Princeton losing Maddox and Mavraides. He cites Penn and Yale as the two squads with which the Crimson may have to contend, while suggesting Brown may make a leap from the bottom behind the youth movement led by McGonagill and Rafael Maia.
The rankings below the article though, at times, seem to be disconnected from the analysis. Princeton is left in the #2 spot, ahead of Penn and Yale even though Fox claimed Harvard would have different competition for the title. Additionally, Ian Hummer is given a spot on the league”s second team. If Hummer carries the Tigers to a second place finish this year after losing Maddox and Mavraides, I have to like his chances to make the first team.
The projected standings also show Brown staying put in the #7 slot despite the aforementioned praise and the prediction that Maia will be the league”s Rookie of the Year. While there are certainly minutes for Maia in the Bears” frontcourt that other freshmen may not see, a ROY season combined with last year”s ROY in the backcourt in McGonagill as well as All-Ivy Honorable Mention Tucker Halpern on the wing, who shot 40% from distance last year, and it seems like the Bears should be able to finish higher than 7th.
Other choices that deserve further examination include “Best frontcourt: Harvard,” which could also have been awarded to the Yale Bulldogs with the duo of Mangano and Kreisberg (with freshmen Sherrod and Childs-Klein coming off the bench). Best backcourt was given to Penn, though Brandyn Curry, Christian Webster, Oliver McNally, and Laurent Rivard may have something to say about that up in Cambridge.
Interestingly, in the “Coach on the hot seat” category, Rivals chose “None.” But if, as they predicted, the Bears fail to move up from the bottom this year, you have to think that things are going to get uncomfortably warm for Coach Agel in Providence.