ivy – Rush The Court

Ivy League Season Wrap-Up & Postseason Preview

Brian Goodman — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:45:59 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at@mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

A Look Back

In by far the toughest Ivy since the 1970s, Harvard delivered exactly as expected, slogging through the treacherous league slate with a 12-2 mark and a second Ivy title. What wasn’t expected was the company the Crimson would have at the top. The average expectation had no other Ivy teams eclipsing the 10-win plateau, but Penn paid no heed to those projections. After losing to Harvard 56-50 at home to fall two games off the pace, the [...]

March Madness Comes Early for the Ivy League

mpatton — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:11:52 +0000

Matt Patton is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from Saturday’s Harvard-Penn game in Cambridge.

With just under two minutes and thirty seconds left to play in the biggest Ivy League matchup of the season, Zack Rosen cut Harvard‘s lead over Penn to one. The lead had gradually dwindled from nine points six and a half minutes earlier, despite four opportunities for the Crimson to push the lead to double digits. Forty seconds later Henry Brooks fouled out, sending Kyle Casey to the charity stripe where he re-upped Harvard’s lead to three. Rosen answered again. A missed three from Harvard [...]

Checking In On… The Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:58:10 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

Looking Back

Perfect No More: Heading into last weekend’s back-to-back, Harvard held a one-game lead and an undefeated mark in Ivy play. The trip to Penn and Princeton claimed the latter, but the Crimson survived with the former intact, as Harvard remains a game ahead of both Penn and Yale in the loss column and two games up on Princeton and Cornell. The Crimson got its most important win of the season on Friday night at The Palestra, [...]

Checking In On… The Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:41:08 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

Looking Back

Not Your Older Brother’s Ivy League: By Adjusted Pythagorean Winning Percentage – the same method used by Ken Pomeroy to rank teams – this year’s Ivy League is far and away the best since roaring ’70s, which culminated with Penn’s Final Four run. Turns out, the RPI isn’t far behind. The previous high-water mark for the league was 2002, when Penn won the league in a three-way playoff with Princeton and Yale. That year, the Quakers [...]

Checking In On… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:18:02 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

Looking Back

Contenders and Pretenders: The first Ivy League back-to-back weekend is in the books, though for only half of the league’s teams. In true 14-game tournament fashion, it took just one weekend for the Ivy title race to change pretty drastically. With a road sweep of Cornell and Columbia, Pennsylvania immediately vaulted into the number one contender spot behind Harvard. The New York trip will be the second-toughest in the Ivies this season (the Princeton/Philadelphia swing [...]

Checking In On… the Ivy League

rtmsf — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:42:24 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Poll

Take Our Poll

A Look Back

Game of the Year (Thus Far): When Harvard held Florida State to 14 points in the first half earlier this year, pundits marveled at the re-tooled Crimson defense. Well, what about allowing the Seminoles to score just 10 points in a half? Princeton did just that on December 30, jumping out to a 27-10 lead on Florida State at the intermission – the fewest points ever scored in the first half by the Seminoles [...]

Checking In On… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:01:50 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

A Look Back

Turnaround Experts: Unless your school’s name was Harvard, November wasn’t the best month. High expectations had been placed on a league that suffered relatively few key graduation losses and had vaulted into the teens in the conference rankings. As the calendar flipped to December, however, the Ivies had just two teams above .500 and the league’s overall record against Division I competition was a disappointing 21-28 with one of the nation’s worst strength of [...]

Checking In On… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:31:41 +0000

Michael James is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League. You can also find his musings on Twitter at @mrjames2006 and @ivybball.

Reader’s Take

Take Our Poll

Looking Back

Defense Reigns Supreme: A year after having five teams scoring more than one point per possession, the Ivies have struggled out of the gate this season with just one team over that mark. The league has compensated with defense and in a big way. While three teams are allowing more than one point per possession according to Ken Pomeroy, removing his preseason weighting reveals that only one (Brown) is above that line based [...]

RTC Conference Primers: #16 – Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:15:46 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

Readers’ Take I

Geography is an important factor in many of the Ivy League pre-conference games. With that in mind, we ask you:

Take Our Poll

Top Storylines

Travelin’ Elis: Optimism in New Haven? The Yankees are history, there are no Knicks, and the Giants and Jets have provided only disappointment so far. So it has to be about the upcoming Yale basketball season. And the fans have every reason to be hopeful thanks to their two stars who spent a good portion of the summer overseas. Jeremiah Kreisberg played for the Israeli [...]

Ivy League Wrap and Postseason Preview

Brian Goodman — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:25:40 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

The Aftermath – Princeton 63, Harvard 62

On a day of hoops hysteria and afternoon delights dominated by buzzer-beaters, ESPN live-look ins, and replayed highlights, none were as hysterical or as replayed as Harvard/Princeton. By now, you know the result, have read the front page of your local sports section, and have seen the dagger Doug Davis shot through every Crimson heart. The agate will simply read Princeton 63, Harvard 62. But this game was so much more than that. It was about players [...]

Checking in on… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:05:56 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

A Look Back

While most of the country dribbles through the dog days of February with talk of seedings and bubbles (alive, alive-o), the Ivy League plays in search of their conference champion and its NCAA tournament representative. After their first meeting, it appeared the rest of the schedule would be a formality for Harvard and Princeton, as they both moved inexorably toward a March 5 date with destiny. But then….

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To A Title: After beating Harvard at [...]

Checking in on… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:15:03 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

Looking Back

It’s hard to believe there are only three weekends remaining in the Ivy season. The past fortnight saw some amazing comebacks (Harvard down 22 at the half vs. Brown at home; Penn rallying three consecutive games from double-figure deficits); difficulty on the road (unless the home team was Dartmouth); some outstanding individual performances (Greg Mangano, Keith Wright, Sean McGonagill, Ian Hummer); and the wheat separating itself from the chaff, beginning with….

The Clash of the Titans: On [...]

Checking in on… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:30:06 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League

A Look Back

Let the Games Begin: For the teams in the power conferences, February is the time when jockeying for position begins. Regular season conference games are used for conference tournament and NCAA seeding purposes. But for the Ivy League, whose season got into high gear this past weekend, these games are precious, for this is a one-bid league with no conference tournament. Only the regular season champ will begin the Road to the Final Four in March.

Poll Position: Last [...]

Checking in on… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:00:57 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

A Look Back

A ho-hum two weeks to begin 2011 in the land of the Ancient Eight. Overall, the league went 11-8 and saw their Conference RPI drop to a more realistic #14. With non-league games dwindling to a precious few, it is unlikely that ranking will change much from now until March. Still two weeks to go before the Ivies get into league play, and most of the members used the time to fatten up on inferior competition (i.e. Baruch, Lyndon St, Union). All except [...]

Checking in on… the Ivy League

Brian Goodman — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:30:17 +0000

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

A Look Back

The return from finals was not kind to most of the Ivy members. The league went an aggregate 8-12 against less than stellar competition, thus dropping the Ivy into a tie for 12th (with the MVC) in conference RPI. Lowlights abounded, including Brown becoming the first Ivy team to lose to Army, Harvard’s embarrassing no-show vs. then #4 Connecticut, and Penn traveling to snow-covered and picturesque Poughkeepsie to lose to those dastardly sly Red Foxes from Marist… the same Marist that [...]