Steven Cook

IHO 2015-16 Ivy Awards

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IHO’s writers voted on the best this Ivy season had to offer, voted on and tabulated prior to the announcement of Ivy League’s official awards Wednesday:

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Justin Sears, Yale (Sr., F – Plainfield, N.J.)

For the second straight season, Sears wins IHO’s Player of the Year honors, a game theory-free decision. It’s no coincidence that Yale’s conference-winning wheelhouse – defense and rebounding – is centered on Sears’ own strengths. The POY was a much better ball distributor this season, scoring with slightly more consistency as well as he reached the 20-point plateau seven times and recorded five double-doubles. This is a clear case of the best getting better.

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Ivy Saturday roundup – Yale nabs first NCAA Tournament berth in 54 years

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Cornell 75, Brown 71

Cornell won this season finale for both teams, scraping up a win with Brown offensive linchpin Tavon Blackmon missing the game due to an ankle injury. In his final collegiate game, Cedric Kuakumensah posted a characteristic 21 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, with Steven Spieth adding 13 rebounds, 12 points and seven assists. But Cornell’s 27-18 advantage in points off treys and 11-0 advantage in fastbreak points proved enough, featuring freshman Matt Morgan with 25 points, four assists and four rebounds, a steal and a block.

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Ivy Friday roundup – Princeton loses control of own destiny at Harvard

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Yale 88, Cornell 64

Yale entered into this game with seemingly little momentum despite having won 15 of its previous 16 contests. The Elis eked out an overtime win at home against lower-tier Ivy Dartmouth with Makai Mason shooting just 4-for-18 from the floor and sporting a gimpy ankle, while the program continues to deal with controversy stemming from the team’s show of support for departed ex-teammate Jack Montague. But in Ithaca Friday night, Yale steamrolled Cornell for 40 minutes, building a 30-point lead late in the second half courtesy of another perfect Brandon Sherrod performance from the floor. Sherrod’s 18 points on 6-for-6 shooting led all scorers and anchored an offense that posted 32 made field goals on 54.2 percent shooting, taking advantage of Cornell’s inferior defense early and often. Robert Mischler, Cornell’s only senior, helped spark an 18-9 run for Cornell midway through the first half that brought Cornell to just a 22-20 deficit, but the Elis finished the stanza on an 18-2 run of their own in the final 7:32. That first half featured some promisingly even scoring distribution, with Sam Downey, Anthony Dallier and Khaliq Ghani consistently joining Sherrod and Mason in the scoring action. Yale was additionally rewarded for its efforts when …

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Ivy Power Rankings – Mar. 1, 2016

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1. Princeton (20-5, 10-1 Ivy)

It’s Princeton’s versatility that gives the Tigers a better chance to win in a potential NCAA Tournament berth than Yale, or indeed, most mid-majors. What matters most in an Ivy playoff is that Princeton’s offense matches up well with Yale’s defense, complete with multiple sharpshooters and slashers that can use the Elis’ size advantage against them.

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Ivy Friday roundup

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Princeton 88, Columbia 83

In a cruel twist of fate for Columbia fans, the Tigers outdid the Lions at Jadwin by the same score as they did earlier this month, when Princeton made not one but two unlikely comebacks in its overtime win at Levien. In Princeton’s previous win against the Lions, Henry Caruso, Spencer Weisz and Steven Cook shot 4-for-24 from the floor. Friday night, that trio shot 22-for-31 en route to 60 combined points, with freshman guard Myles Stephens adding 15 points in 26 minutes off the bench.

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A substantial sweep for Princeton

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The Tigers’ weekend sweep of Yale and Brown at Jadwin gave them control of their destiny in the hectic Ivy race and tied them with the Bulldogs in the all-important loss column.

The largest Jadwin crowd in the Mitch Henderson era, bolstered by a beer-soaked cadre of undergraduates and Garden State chief executive Chris Christie, Delaware ’84, was on hand for Friday’s matchup with Justin Sears and company. Yale controlled the backboards and the game in the early going, taking an 11-6 lead after six minutes. Two Sam Downey free throws gave the Bulldogs their largest lead of the game, 19-13, with nine minutes to go in the first period. The key statistic was Yale’s six offensive rebounds while shutting the Tigers out in that category. At the five-minute mark the margin remained six, 27-21.

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Ivy Saturday roundup

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Harvard 76, Cornell 74

This will surely be remembered as the weekend that ensured Bill Courtney’s exit as Cornell’s head coach after six years of no postseason tournament appearances, following him taking over a program fresh off a Sweet 16 run in 2010. On Friday night, Cornell came out flat and struggled mightily for long stretches in a home 78-66 loss to Dartmouth, a game that the Big Red had to have after being on the wrong end of back-to-back weekend sweeps. Then this game happened.

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Princeton’s midseason report card

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Saturday’s heart-stopping overtime victory at Columbia gave the Tigers at least temporary control of their destiny for the balance of the Ivy League campaign. Princeton’s 6-1 first half record puts the denizens of Old Nassau firmly in second place, trailing only the unbeaten Yale Bulldogs. This week’s Game Of The Year is set for Friday night when the Tigers seek to avenge their only loss, a four-point nailbiter at Yale three weeks ago. IHO presents a midseason report card on the Tigers, a fascinating story of a team very deliberately assembled by Mitch Henderson to withstand and even flourish in the nightmare of Ivy League back-to-backs.

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Ivy Saturday roundup

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Columbia 77, Brown 73

The Lions absolutely needed to have this game to hold serve in the Ivy title chase, and they got it thanks to Grant Mullins. The unsung senior guard turned it on with Brown keying in on Maodo Lo and Alex Rosenberg, notching 25 points on 8-for-14 shooting, including 6-for-9 from long range. The Bears held the lead as late as the 3:18 mark but couldn’t quite crack it, led by Steven Spieth, who has averaged 20 points per game since Brown was swept by Yale last month.

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Ivy Saturday roundup

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Yale 79, Princeton 75

When you’re hot, you’re hot, and Yale was just that. Yale’s starters shot 54.9 percent from the floor and 61.1 percent from three-point range, and the Elis needed pretty much all of those shots to fall to get by the Tigers, who never folded, cutting into what was a 10-point lead with 3:58 left to play to keep Bulldog fans nervous until the end. In fact, superior shooting was the only thing that separated the Elis from Princeton for much of the game. The Tigers lost despite scoring 43 points in the second half, scoring 19 points off turnovers versus Yale’s nine, outscoring the Bulldogs’ bench 24-3 and making the same number of treys as the Elis (11). Princeton’s ability to keep Yale off the offensive boards for the entire half was impressive as well.

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