Home of the Roundball Poets
Brown needed to sweep Cornell and Columbia at home this weekend to shore up its standing for an Ivy League Tournament run.
Although it wasn’t easy, the Bears completed that sweep Saturday against Columbia, holding the Lions to four points over the final 5:04 to erase a four-point deficit at the start of that stretch and walk away with a 72-66 win.
The Cornell Big Red got off to a good start, but things went downhill towards the end of the first half as the Brown Bears picked up their first Ivy League victory of the season, 74-63.
The Big Red (4-12, 1-2 Ivy) led 30-23 with 6:48 left in the first half after Bryan Knapp drilled a three. The Bears (8-8, 1-2) then proceeded to go on an 18-4 run to end the first half and take a 41-36 lead into the locker room.
Tyrese Martin missed a free throw, Zach Hunsaker grabbed the defensive rebound and the Brown Bears dribbled it out. It was over. Brown had picked up a win over the 8-3 Rhode Island Rams of the Atlantic 10, who had only one previous loss against a nonranked team and none against a non-power five team. Brown had capped its Division I nonconference schedule with arguably its most impressive win of the season. The Bears had gotten contributions from both their star upperclassmen and their budding underclassmen.
The only nagging feeling came from this question: Why hadn’t they been playing like this all year?
QUEENS, N.Y. – Brown mounted a furious comeback at St. John’s, cutting a 17-point halftime deficit to four, but the Johnnies tightened up its defense and L. J. Figueroa scored 11 points over the last eight minutes to send the Bears to its fourth loss in five games.
Brandon Anderson returned to the lineup for Brown on Saturday afternoon, but his team-high 19 points weren’t enough as the Bears dropped a 76-56 decision to Navy at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
The first half, a back-and-forth affair with seven lead changes, ended with the Midshipmen on top, 27-26. Both teams struggled from the field, with Navy shooting 29% and Brown (4-3) hitting 37%. The Midshipmen (4-3) found success at getting to the free throw line, getting 13 chances compared to Brown’s three but only converting on six of those opportunities.
In the final game of the Brown Bears Tip-Off Classic, the Army Black Knights went ice-cold from the field and Brown benefited, winning, 86-66. Brown improved to 3-2 with the win, and Army dropped to 1-4. Brown won all three games it played in the tournament, beating UMass-Lowell on Friday, 82-74, and Sacred Heart on Saturday, 82-77.
A balanced attack for the Bears saw five scorers in double digits, those being Brandon Anderson who had 16 points (4-of-8), Desmond Cambridge’s 13 (5-of-12), 12 each from Zach Hunsaker (4-of-7) and Tamenang Choh (3-of-7), and Obi Okolie’s 10 points as well (2-of-6). Tamenang Choh hauled in 10 rebounds to complete the double-double, and Joshua Howard was just two points short of a double-double as he also had 10 rebounds. Brown controlled the backboard, outrebounding the Knights, 49-33.
Saturday’s What to Watch
A large number of important games on deck for this Saturday afternoon and evening. The Penn at Cornell and Princeton at Columbia women’s games do not look to be exciting, but the rest of the games do have strong implications on the Path(s) to the Palestra. So, skip the Olympics (or, at least DVR it so you can eventually watch the skating and hear the always informative commentary from Tara Lipinski & Johnny Weir) and get ready for another exciting day of Ivy hoops.
Now that we’re at the point of the season where the conference standings really start to loom large, the IHO Power Poll goes away and we drill down each of the Ivies by their order in their standings.
First, though, some observations about an unusually exciting Ivy slate of games so far. The Ivy League, per KenPom, ranks first among all 32 Division I conferences in close game percentage, or percentage of games decided by fewer than four points or in overtime, with 11 of 23 games falling in that category. The Ivy League ranked 20th in that category last season, 25th in 2016 and next-to-last in 2015, so hope you’re enjoying the uptick in close contests.
This season’s Ivy slate has been unusually kind to the home teams so far too. The Ivy League also ranks first in Division I in home win percentage, as 18 of 23 hosts have been victorious so far. Interestingly, the league ranked last in Division I last season, when home teams went just 28-28 in conference play. The Ancient Eight ranked 15th in home win percentage in 2016 and 26th in 2015, so this season’s frequency of success for home teams has been unusual too. Since Penn and Princeton are going to be hitting the road down the stretch, the league’s home-win percentage could go back down some by the time the season is over.
1. Penn (13-6, 3-0 Ivy)
After Penn let Temple slip away at the Palestra last weekend, it got Big 5 revenge Saturday with a 67-56 win over St. Joseph’s, displaying a stout defense that had Steve Donahue singing its praises after the game.
“The story of our team, and our season, is our defense,” Donahue said according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Playing two bigs, with the defensive numbers we have right now … we’re way different than last year, and way ahead.”