The Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ were looking up at the end of last week, but more importantly, it’s a good time to be bullish about Ivy League basketball. There’s going to be an actual Ivy hoops season this year, and we’re here to herald its return together. Here’s how Ivy Hoops Online contributors feel about some of the storylines within that greater, happy story as the 2021-22 campaign approaches.
The Palestra
Ivy hoops roundup – New opportunities
As Ivy League basketball emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, new opportunities abound for new and returning Ivy players, coaches and even windows:
If there would have been a 2020-21 Ivy hoops season, what would have happened?
Now’s the time of year that an Ivy League hoops slate would be revving up, and since there’s no Ivy hoops action to come this spring, here’s an IHO contributors’ roundtable pondering what might have happened in the 2020-21 Ivy season on the men’s and or women’s sides if there had been one instead of an exodus of much of the league’s top talent via the transfer portal. Behold the one-year Ivy hoops universes we created:
Ivy hoops roundup – May 11, 2020
Yale women’s incoming class announced
Yale women’s basketball announced its three-member Class of 2024 Monday. The class consists of:
- Brenna McDonald, a 6-foot-2 forward from Natick, Mass. who was named to the Boston Globe Dream Team her senior year
- Haley Sabol, a 6-foot-2 forward from Pittsburgh who was a first-team all-state selection her junior and senior years for Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va.
- Elles van der Maas, a 6-foot-2 guard from Sydney who made the 2018 All-Australian team
AJ Brodeur: A Penn great for all time
Years ago, back in the black and white, pre-digital ether, I attended my first Penn basketball game on a chilly, late fall evening. The Cathedral, an edifice I didn’t even know existed until I was nestled wide-eyed within its cavernous nave, was steamy and the burgeoning Big 5 crowd, restless, loud and profane. In my hand was a game program with Penn’s All Time Leaders featured prominently across its center portion.
Naturally, my eyes drifted to the sexiest stat of all: all-time scoring leader. It was Ernie Beck, 1951-1953, 1,827 points. “Ernie Beck.” That name sounded old. It conjured up mental images of the colorless, antediluvian days of a two-handed set shot sailing through the air before orderly rows of spectators wearing suits and ties. As my attention quickly returned to the spectacle before me, I recall thinking, “That record may never be broken.” I was right — until now.
AJ Brodeur will most likely be remembered for finally eclipsing this lofty personal milestone for a school with a long and proud basketball tradition, but what he really did over his four years wearing the Red & Blue was something much greater — he saved the program.
Penn men cruise over Columbia to take No. 4 seed in Ivy Madness as AJ Brodeur makes history
Penn senior forward AJ Brodeur set three program records in his final game at the Palestra as the Quakers easily dispatched Columbia, 85-65, on a historic night at the Palestra to earn the No. 4 seed in the Ivy League Tournament.
The Red & Blue (16-11, 8-6 Ivy) nabbed their fourth straight Ivy League Tournament berth, knocking Brown (also 8-6 in Ivy play) on the strength of a Brodeur triple-double: 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Penn split the season series with Brown but held the second tiebreaker, a better record against league top seed Yale.
Brodeur’s triple-double was the first in program history, a feat that followed two more records from the Northborough, Mass. native.
With the game well in hand in the second half, the focus became whether Brodeur would pass Ernie Beck ’53 to become the all-time leading scorer.
Penn takes revenge on Harvard in 70-48 victory as Parker, Padilla and company put it all together
When the Penn women have their whole game working, they’re hard to beat. On Saturday night at the Palestra, Harvard couldn’t come close.
Three weeks after losing to Harvard by seven in Boston, the Quakers (17-5, 7-2) scored the game’s first 12 points and never looked back in the 70-48 victory. Four Quakers hit double figures.
Harvard (14-9, 5-5) has lost three in a row and is in danger of missing the Ivy League Tournament in its own gym. (Someone should ask coach Kathy Delaney-Smith how she feels about that possibility. Not me: I’m chicken. But someone should.) The Crimson probably need to win at least three of the last four games on their schedule to knock Columbia or Yale out of the way.
The importance of Ivy school spirit
One could say I was born into it. My grandpa was one of the first professors at Brown’s Medical School and as a result of his medical discoveries, Brown awarded him with an honorary doctorate. He was a huge Brown sports fan and as a faculty member, he received four tickets to every Brown home sporting event and attended even if there was snow or ice. When my dad was a young child, the family beagle ran away from home and found his way onto the Brown Stadium football field during a game and started eating the Brown bear’s dog food. This was when there was an actual bear on the sidelines.
As I was growing up, we lived close to Brown and my grandma, who we were always visiting, lived one block away from Brown Stadium. My grandpa passed away four years before I was born but school spirit for Brown stayed alive in our family. One of my earliest memories is when I was about five years old walking home from synagogue on Rosh Hashanah. My dad bought me a Brown football pennant from the souvenir stand outside the stadium. It was my reward for being good and sitting through services. This pennant made me just as happy as a new Barbie doll would. Brown football was something really special and I was proud to show my spirit.
Penn bests Yale at the Palestra
No one has ever pretended that the Princeton-Penn road trip is an easy one. Not even for the Ivy League leader.
Yale fell victim to a noisy and boisterous Palestra and too much AJ Brodeur and Eddie Scott, as the Quakers upset the Elis, 69-61, Saturday night.