Robert Hinton

Cornell men’s basketball outlasts Harvard for key Ivy League road win

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In an action-packed contest that turned into a battle between the brothers Hinton, it was Cornell and older brother Adam prevailing over Harvard and younger brother Robert, 86-79, at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday afternoon.

“If you can’t get up for playing your younger brother …” the senior guard from Hollywood Hills, Calif. told ESPN+ after the game. “We keep track for bragging rights for whose got more wins. I’m up 2-1 [in head-to-head matchups] right now. I’ve got one more win on my best friend [Harvard senior guard] Chandler [Pigge] as well.”

After going winless in their first three Ancient Eight contests, the Big Red (9-9, 2-3 Ivy) won their second straight road contest and move into a three-way tie for fifth place with Columbia and Penn. The Crimson (10-9, 3-2), however, ended a three-game winning streak and dropped to their own three-way tie for second with Dartmouth and Princeton.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s loss at Harvard

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Penn men’s basketball fell just a few inches short of holding onto a share of first place in the Ivy League standings Monday after it took a tough road loss to Harvard, 64-63.

The Quakers (9-8, 2-2 Ivy) rallied back after giving up an 11-0 run that spanned the end of the first half and the beginning of the second to take multiple leads.

The Crimson (10-8, 3-1) seized back momentum after their star sophomore, Robert Hinton, delivered a highlight-reel, and-one dunk over Quakers big man Augustus Gerhart with 5:31 to play. Penn rallied back to tie the game twice after Hinton’s one-handed flush thanks to the efforts of sophomore point guard AJ Levine, but surrendered baskets at the rim to Harvard on five straight possessions in the game’s final three minutes.

Despite that interior defensive collapse, the Quakers had two long-shot chances to tie or win the game in the final two seconds. But Levine was unable to intentionally miss a free throw with 1.9 seconds left and Penn down two. Harvard missed the front end of a one-and-one after Levine’s unintentional make, but TJ Power’s desperation heave came up short.

There’s nothing wrong with splitting two games on a tough road trip, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Penn let a big opportunity slip through its fingers.

What did fans learn from a tough afternoon?

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LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball falls at Harvard

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Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps an 87-80 loss in overtime for Princeton men’s basketball (6-12, 2-1 Ivy) at Harvard (9-8, 2-1) Saturday:

Harvard men’s basketball cruises to victory at Columbia

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Harvard men’s basketball jumped out to an 11-2 lead before the first media timeout and never looked back, as the Crimson notched a 79-54 wire-to-wire win over Columbia at Levien Gymnasium Saturday afternoon.

“I thought it was a tremendous effort from start to finish from our guys,” coach Tommy Amaker told Harvard Athletics.  “It really was defensively. We had energy. We got the stops. We were able to get out and play from ahead. We were able to play a fun style early, which makes you get confidence quickly. On the road, that is so critical.”

Amaker’s squad improved to 1-1 in Ivy play and 8-8 on the season, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions, which lost their first home game of the 2025-26 campaign, dropped to 1-1 in the Ancient Eight and 12-4 for the year.

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Dartmouth men’s basketball pulls away late for opening-night defeat of Harvard

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In an Ivy League opening tussle that was close throughout, the Dartmouth men proved to be the deeper and more accurate team, pulling away over the last five minutes to claim a 76-68 win over Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion.

Monday night’s road victory was a great start for the Big Green (7-7, 1-0 Ivy), which is looking for its first regular season title since 1959 as well as its second straight trip to the Ivy League Tournament. The same cannot be said for the Crimson (7-8, 0-1), which is looking to claim its first regular season title since 2019 and get back to the Ancient Eight’s upper division for the first time since 2020.

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Harvard men’s basketball falls to St. John’s, 85-59

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Harvard men’s basketball traveled south to Queens to visit St. John’s on Wednesday night and went back north a few hours later with an 85-59 defeat to the Red Storm.

With one game left in the nonconference schedule, Tommy Amaker’s squad fell to 6-7 on the season, while Rick Pitino’s group ended its out-of-conference slate and improved to 8-4 (1-0 Big East).

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Harvard men’s basketball’s case for optimism despite loss to Boston University

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UNCASVILLE, Conn. – As you would expect, the Harvard men’s basketball pregame hype video played just before its starting lineup is announced includes clips from both its 2013 and 2014 NCAA Tournament victories.

But it also includes one from the 2015 Ivy League playoff, a grinding win over Yale at The Palestra after the Bulldogs lost on the last day of the regular season and the two rivals finished the season tied. Although they would get edged 67-65 by North Carolina to prevent its third straight season with a NCAA win the next week, it was the culmination of four straight NCAA Tournament berths and six straight 20-win campaigns.

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2025-26 IHO Men’s Preseason Poll

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The 2025-26 Ivy men’s basketball season tips off Friday, so it’s time for Ivy Hoops Online’s preseason poll – not to be confused with the Ivy League-released media preseason poll. Here’s how our contributors collectively predict the league will shake out, with select observations from some of them:

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Yale men’s hoops remains on top heading into 2025-26 campaign

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Yale doesn’t rebuild. It reloads.

It is trite but true. Yale and Princeton have been the premier Ivy programs since 2015. But it looks as if Yale will hold that mantle this year, as it has the last two regular seasons.

Incoming frosh will be vastly better than their recruiting rankings, and sophomores will become contributors and then ultimately stars. It always happens for Yale.

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Ivy Madness day two – Reporter’s notebook

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Lots of alumni, former players and others from the basketball world at the Pizzitola Sports Center for the second day of the Ivy League Tournament Saturday.

Seated in row one were Harvard’s Ivy Rookie of the Year Robert Hinton, his mother, and his father Robert, a former Princeton quarterback in the 1970s. The Hintons sat through both men’s games to cheer on Princeton and also Cornell, where the Harvard standout’s brother Adam is a strong contributor.

Hinton will definitely be back at Harvard next season in this age of NIL and player poaching.

Robert was the No. 97 recruit in the class of 2024 and verbally committed to Harvard in his sophomore year at Harvard-Westlake. His finalists were Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

Former Yale players Steve Leondis, Chris Dudley, Azar Swain, Matt Minoff and Mike Williams were in attendance to cheer on the Bulldogs, as was former Yale president Peter Salovey.

Bill Kingston, former Princeton guard on the 1965 Final Four team and Bill Bradley’s roommate, was seated in the second row.

For the second consecutive year, the Legends of Ivy Basketball remained on hiatus, with hopes that the ceremony will resume in 2026 at Cornell.

Many writers, Ivy officials and former players offered varied explanations of the 2.9 seconds which were “added” to the clock at the end of the Princeton-Yale game. The supervisor of officials said that the clock did not appropriately stop after John Poulakidas hit his trey to seal the victory. Others differed.

The coaching changes at Columbia and Penn were also a subject of much media and Ivy administrators. There was a consensus that Penn alum and NYU coach Dave Klatsky will be in play at both schools. Also, there were rumblings that Colgate coach and former Penn player Matt Langel might have interest in the Penn vacancy. Some Princeton and Yale assistants were also discussed as possible Columbia hires. Columbia athletic director Peter Pilling was mum on topic but did add, perhaps in jest, that he had his phone turned off during the Ivy tourney.

Some media grumbled about the Ivy clearing out the gym in between all games and opined that with a potential paucity of attendees at Cornell next year, the league should rethink that policy – one not in place at the Big East or the ACC tourneys.