Ryan Schwieger

Ivy League men’s basketball Media Day roundup

by

Two days after the Media Day for Ivy women’s hoops, the men had their turn at the virtual podium.  A day prior, the results of the preseason poll were released.  While five different teams earned top votes, the overall totals showed no changes from the last day of competition in 2020.

Yale, two-time defending Ivy champion, was again picked to come in first with 115 points and seven first-place votes.  Harvard, the 2019 co-champion, was close behind, tallying 110 points and four first-place votes.  Princeton, the 2017 title winner, closed out the top tier with 108 points and two first-place votes.

Penn, the 2018 co-champion, secured the last slot in the upper division with 93 points and two first-place selections.  Brown, which last held the title in 1986, again found itself behind the Quakers for fifth place with 79 points and a pair of title votes.

Dartmouth, which last entered the winner’s circle in 1959, was tabbed in the six slot with 43 points, four points more than Cornell, which last held the top spot in the Sweet Sixteen season of 2010.  Columbia, the 1968 champion, was projected to finish last with 25 points.

Read more

Ivy Hoops transfers – continued …

by

Harvard’s Bush heads west, Haskett goes south

Two of the first three Harvard seniors to enter the transfer portal have made their graduate school decisions in November.

Jadyn Bush will be heading out west to join the University of California, Berkeley, and Rio Haskett will suit up for Hampton University.  There is still no reported decision from Danilo Djuricic.

Read more

Ivy hoops roundup: Graduate transfers galore

by

The Ivy League’s longstanding policy of only extending eligibility to student-athletes in their first four years of undergraduate enrollment, as expected, is prompting an increasingly long list of talented seniors becoming graduate transfers.

Read more

Yale men continue success against Princeton, remain atop Ivy standings

by
NEW HAVEN – The hegemony over Princeton continues for Yale at John J. Lee Amphitheater.
The Elis defeated the Tigers, 66-63, Yale’s sixth straight win in the series. The win also marks the ninth home weekend sweep of Princeton and Penn. To put this into historical context, Penn leads the overall series by 151-82 and Princeton leads it now 150-84.

Read more

Princeton men’s defense stifles Brown as Tigers’ depth bodes well for Ivy League Tournament run

by

The Tigers claimed one of the four slots available in the Ivy League Tournament with a 71-49 thrashing of the Brown Bears in Providence last night. The key to the win was a signature defensive effort reminiscent of some of the best Tiger teams in the long and illustrious history of the program.

Princeton focused on the Bears’ formidable “Big Three” of Brandon Anderson, Zach Hunsaker and Tameneng Choh, holding the talented trio to a combined 33 points on 12-for-39 shooting from the field. No other Bear player scored more than six.

Brandon Anderson posted 12 points on 4-for-15 shooting as Brown struggled to score in a 71-49 home loss to Princeton Friday night. | Photo by Erica Denhoff

The game did not start out as a Tiger rout. Brown jumped out to a 5-0 early lead, but two Jaelin Llewellyn threes restored order after five minutes. Jerome Desrosiers and Drew Friberg came off the bench to spark a 9-0 Tiger surge giving the visitors an 18-10 lead with 10 minutes remaining in the opening period. Later, Desrosiers would feature prominently in a 13-0 Tiger run leading to a 40-28 halftime advantage.

Drew Friberg continued his hot streak in the second half. His long three at the 17:05 mark maintained the 12-point Tiger lead, but sparked a 14-0 run to put the game away. With eight minutes left and the score 56-33, Princeton coach Mitch Henderson was able to reach far down the bench.

Read more

Jaelin Llewellyn shines as Princeton escapes Dartmouth with 65-62 win

by

The typically wild weekend road trip to Boston and Hanover is over, and the Tigers survived with one of their goals, a berth in Ivy Madness, well within their grasp. We may well look back on this trip as the time Jaelin Llewellyn’s total game was on display at an absolutely crucial juncture for his team. Recognizing the need to step up in the absence of Ryan Schwieger, Llewellyn courageously embraced the challenge and, to put it mildly, delivered.

On Friday at Harvard, Llewellyn almost single-handedly kept the Tigers in the game to the last seconds, leading the scoring with 22 points. If he has had a weakness this season, it has been his inefficiency from deep. He takes more three-pointers than anyone else, but came into the weekend converting an unacceptable 25%. His 21 points on Saturday night gave the Tigers the spark they needed, and included 5-for-7 from beyond the arc. The final score, 65-62 Princeton, tells very little about the game.

Read more

Harvard returns favor versus Princeton with one-point win

by

Princeton and Harvard have matched up quite evenly this season. Each team has scored the same number of points as the other and, after last night’s contest at Lavietes Pavilion, each has a one point win at home. The rubber match, if it happens, will also take place at Lavietes during the Ivy League Tournament next month.

Last evening’s affair, while hardly an aesthetic success, was an intense, physical battle that was not resolved until the final buzzer sounded on a 61-60 Harvard victory.

The Tigers were minus starting forward Ryan Schwieger due to illness. His status for tonight’s game at Dartmouth is unknown. Jaelin Llewellyn picked up the scoring slack for Princeton, exploding for 14 of the first 16 points and a total of 17 for the half.

Princeton made a nice five-minute run late in the half to grab a nine-point lead. Stubbornly, the Crimson clawed back to cut the Tigers’ margin to 34-30 at the half.

Both teams ramped up the defensive pressure in the second half. Mason Forbes, in particular, stepped for the Crimson as Chris Lewis spent more than half the game on the bench. Forbes did a great job defending the paint, contributing seven rebounds and 11 points in 22 minutes.

Mason Forbes was the KenPom game MVP of Harvard’s 61-60 win over Princeton Friday night, posting 11 points, seven rebounds, four blocks and two assists. | Photo by Erica Denhoff

Read more

Princeton bounces back with 73-54 victory over Brown

by
Last night’s contest between the Tigers and the Brown Bears matched two clubs apparently heading in different directions. The Bears, winners of five straight, including a win the previous night in Philadelphia, came in focused on a shot at the league title. The Tigers, on the other hand, had squandered their hot start by failing to be competitive in two of their last three outings. The humiliating loss to Yale was galling in every way. The question for Mitch Henderson was how his kids would respond just 22 hours later.
The winner of this one would at least maintain a hold on second place and move a step closer to Ivy Madness.

Read more

Yale thrashes Princeton at Jadwin, 88-64

by
The Princeton-Yale series has, more often than not, at least in this century, featured consequential contests. Adding to the mystique of the H-Y-P rivalries, basketball games among these three usually match teams contending for the Ivy League championship.
Last night’s visit to Jadwin by the Bulldogs fit the bill perfectly, bringing together two teams tied atop the standings with 5-1 records in this week’s “Game Of The Year.” I remember writing about a Yale game at Jadwin Gym a few years ago described as “the most intense game I had witnessed in many years.”
The larger than usual crowd filing into the arena last night expected more of that intensity. Adding to the aura of excitement was the much anticipated annual halftime appearance of Red Panda, the San Francisco-based performer who uses her foot to flip cups onto a saucer placed on the top of her head while balanced on an 8-foot unicycle. You have to see it to appreciate it.

Read more

Princeton stays tied atop Ivy League with Yale after taking control at Columbia

by

The Tigers enjoyed a nice bounceback effort against the Columbia Lions Sunday afternoon in New York. Suffering no ill effects from a desultory outing in Ithaca, five Princeton players reached double figures, led by Jaelin Llewellyn (19) and Ryan Schwieger (18), in an 81-74 victory at Levien Gym.

Richmond Aririguzoh made an emphatic statement for the visitors with 16 points and a team-high four assists, after suffering his worst performance of the season against Cornell. Using his great strength effectively, the senior made eight shots in nine attempts.

Jerome Desrosiers and Drew Friberg continued their excellent bench contributions with 10 and 11 points respectively, combining to make nine buckets in 14 attempts.

The Lions (6-16, 1-5 Ivy) quickly gained the lead at 5-0. Fears that the Tigers (10-9, 5-1) might dig themselves into a deep hole as they did the previous day were quickly dispelled by RA. It took the Tigers nearly eight minutes to claim their first lead but after they finally did on a Friberg three-point play, they would not relinquish it for the balance of the afternoon.

The lead was eight at the half. The Tigers managed double-digit leads in the second stanza, but Mike Smith almost single-handedly kept the Lions’ hope alive. The league’s leading scorer burnished his All-Ivy credentials with 30 points, canning 14 buckets in 25 tries.

The Tigers shot 55% from the field and a most satisfying 17-for-18 from the charity stripe. Llewellyn drove to the basket repeatedly drawing fouls in the process. He was a perfect 10-for-10 from the line.

The weekend split matched Yale’s record sending the Ivy co-leaders into a crucial showdown at Jadwin Gym Friday night. Brown’s weekend sweep keeps its title hopes aflame heading into the weekend against the Ps.