After a few weeks of huge commitments this week was a little more quiet as it seems like most of the big pieces have committed with the exception of Quincy Miller, LeBryan Nash, and Adonis Thomas, but don’t forget that none of the currently committed players have done more than verbally commit and we all know how fickle teenagers can be so we could see some minds change between now and Signing Day. Having said that there were a few notable commitments this week and other news worth following.

• Tony Wroten Jr., a top 30 recruit according to some recruiting services, but a top 5 player in his mind and a world-class Twitter provocateur, announced that he was going to commit to Washington and we have the fourteen minute and forty-six second YouTube clip to prove. Tony, if you think a YouTube video makes you big-time, Adonis Thomas would like to have a word with you. On the bright side for Husky fans it looks like Tony is working on getting a qualifying SAT score.
• After losing what seemed to be his entire roster after arriving at Oregon, Dana Altman is finally starting to add players to his roster as he secured a commitment from Jabari Brown, a top 25 player in this year’s class. Brown’s all-around game should help fill the Oregon’s holes all-around the floor.
• Steve Lavin has already had what most would consider a successful recruiting season at St. John’s, but he isn’t resting as he is embarking on a nationwide tour going door-to-door trying to find recruits.
• Georgetown got a commitment from Mikael Hopkins, a 6’9″ forward out of the famed DeMatha Catholic program. Interestingly Hopkins cited Georgetown’s “tradition of getting big men to the [NBA]”, which must be a reference to the mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s as we don’t think he was referring to Roy Hibbert.
• LSU picked up a surprise commitment from Johnny O’Bryant, one of the top inside players in this year’s class.
• Gonzaga picked up a commitment from Kevin Pangos, a talented point guard out of Canada who was named the top point guard at the FIBA U-17 World Championships this summer and was mentioned in a piece by Luke Winn earlier this year about the growth of Canadian basketball.
  

  The next great Canadian point guard?

• Jabarie Hinds, a point guard from Mount Vernon HS (Ben Gordon‘s old high school), appears to have moved UConn to the top of his list and expects Kemba Walker to enter the NBA Draft after this season. Hinds seems to be sticking with the Huskies even after UConn’s on-going issues with the NCAA.

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College basketball fans: get your calendars out. Over the next five Wednesdays until opening night arrives on November 8, we’ll unveil a portion of our 68 Can’t-Miss Games of 2010-11, a countdown of the matchups that you need to make sure to see this season. From the early season headliners to the best rivalries conference play has to offer, this list has you covered with the game, date, time (ET), network and a brief synopsis of what to expect. Remember, folks: this list doesn’t even include another eight to ten must-see early-season tournament games, for which we’ll have a separate post later this month.  Without further ado, here are the first 14 games on the list — set your Tivos/DVRs now.

#68. January 22 – Ohio State at Illinois, 12 pm (CBS) – Just prior to the stretch run in what should be the most competitive conference in the land this season, Ohio State travels to rowdy Champaign for a physical, rugged battle. Two of the best freshmen the Big Ten has to offer will be featured on national television in Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger and Illinois’ Jereme Richmond. Thad Matta should have an idea after this game whether last year’s supporting cast will take a step forward or instead fall on hard times without their former superstar Evan Turner.

#67. February 2 – Duke at Maryland, 9 pm (ESPN) – There’s only a small handful of games where the likely preseason #1 Blue Devils have a chance to fall. This is one of them. The Terrapins knocked off Duke in College Park last season. The difference: they had Grievis Vasquez, Eric Hayes and Landon Milbourne at their disposal. If the secondary players of a year ago — players like Sean Mosley, Cliff Tucker, Adrian Bowie and freshman Mychal Parker — can produce sufficiently alongside budding star Jordan Williams, Duke could be in for another dogfight against one of their bitter rivals.

Terp Fans Will Be Ready For Duke Again

#66. March 5 – Princeton at Harvard, 7 pm (TBA) – For those of you Ivy League fans out there, this is shaping up to be the best game of the entire slate and one that may decide the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. With Cornell’s three top seniors departing, most believe the conference crowd is Princeton’s to lose considering the Tigers return their top five scorers. Harvard, despite losing all-Ivy performer Jeremy Lin, returns the majority of his supporting cast and Lavietes Pavilion should be rocking on the last Saturday of the regular season.

#65. January 13 – Purdue at Minnesota, 7 pm (ESPN) – Purdue will be returning to the Barn on this January night for the first time since they saw their national title hopes crumble with Robbie Hummel’s devastating knee injury in 2010. More importantly, this is an early statement game for a Golden Gophers team that’s hard to peg in the preseason. They Gophers return some intriguing pieces from a team that made a late push to secure a bid in 2010, notably Devoe Joseph, Blake Hoffarber and Ralph Sampson III, and this shapes up to be a potential early season statement win for Tubby Smith.

#64. February 12 – Old Dominion at VCU, time TBA – Despite the defections of Gerald Lee as a senior and Larry Sanders to the NBA, both the Monarchs and Rams may find themselves atop the CAA standings once again. Shaka Smart brings in an impressive recruiting haul to go with experienced floor leader Joey Rodriguez and fellow guards Brandon Rozell and Bradford Burgess. It’s the same story for ODU’s Blaine Taylor — Lee is gone, but most of his sidekicks are back in the fold. This should be ODU’s stiffest test on the CAA slate.

#63. January 29 – Missouri at Texas, 9 pm (ESPNU) – There’s five teams that could legitimately challenge for the Big 12 title this season. Here’s two of them meeting in a late January battle. The jury’s out on the Longhorns given how the second half of last year played out, but the talent and depth that Rick Barnes assembled still makes a trip to Austin less than ideal for the visitor. Between Kim English, Marcus Denmon and incoming freshman Paul Pressey, it could be guard play and the Tigers’ patented full-court pressure that negates any Texas home court advantage.

#62. March 5 – Florida at Vanderbilt, 6 pm (ESPN) – With Billy Donovan dodging a Mareese Speights/Nick Calathes type unexpected loss this summer, it appears that the Gators and their returning five starters are the odds-on favorites to win the SEC (this could hinge on Enes Kanter’s eligibility for Kentucky). Their regular season finale shapes up to be a challenge at Vanderbilt’s wacky Memorial Gymnasium. Losing A.J. Ogilvy sent the Commodores down a few notches, but potential lottery pick Jeffery Taylor and sharpshooter John Jenkins could be enough to send a late-season punch Florida’s way.

#61. December 11 – Tennessee vs. Pittsburgh, 3:15 pm (ESPN) – The stage is set for these two powerhouses to  battle at the Penguins brand new Consol Energy Center in downtown Pittsburgh, giving this “neutral site” game a significant pro-Panthers flavor. Despite losing three key seniors, the Volunteers re-loaded with freshman Tobias Harris and return the talented Scotty Hopson. Many folks think a Pitt team that overachieved tremendously last season has the chops to win a competitive Big East. This would be an early resume-building win for both squads.

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One of the coolest sporting trends of the last decade in sports has been the increasing usage of statistical analysis to make determinations about the games that we love and follow.  While Bill James, Nate Silver and others have done yeoman’s work in popularizing the use of these metrics, they’ve mostly focused on the professional side of sports (and political polling, in Silver’s case).  One notable exception, Ken Pomeroy’s site of college basketball tempo-free statistics, has been invaluable in how we all understand and evaluate the game, helping to debunk common myths while also alerting us to teams and players under the radar of the national consciousness.  Another up-and-coming group that is showing it wants to enter the fray by analyzing some of the big questions in the game is the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, who just two weeks ago presented us with the most unlikely finish of the 2009-10 season, a random game between Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge.

Luckily the HSAC is a Little Better Than This (artist: B. Shabad)

Well, the HSAC is back, and today’s release is even better.  Addressing the widespread end-of-game question among announcers and pundits over whether a winning team should foul in late-game situations when up three points, the HSAC makes a rather curious finding.  It seems that over the past decade or so, there has been a slow but steady increase in the so-called conventional wisdom that fouling in those situations is the right play — the thinking being that the odds of the opponent making the first free throw, missing the second, and still securing the rebound and making another shot in a short period of time are very low.   That part is true.  The odds are low.  But what is equally low from a statistical standpoint are the odds of a strategy of simply playing defense and hoping you get the stop.  From the article:

In the 2009-2010 season, I found 443 instances where a team held the ball down three points during their last possession of a period (either the end of the 2nd half or an overtime period). In 391 of those cases, the team leading did not foul. In 52 cases, the team chose to foul. […]  Of the 52 teams that committed a foul, six lost the game for a winning percentage of 88.46%. Of the 391 teams that did not foul, 33 lost the game for a winning percentage of 91.56%.  Both a two sample t test of proportion and a Chi-squared test fail to reject the null hypothesis that there is a difference in winning percentage between the two strategies. In this sample, teams that did not foul won slightly more often.  For the less statistically inclined, this means that there is no significant difference between the two strategies. [emphasis added]

A few additional comments on this finding.

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There were only a few commitments this week and none of the magnitude of Anthony Davis or Isaiah Austin, but many highly rated prospects are beginning to narrow down their lists, which means we should be getting even more news coming out about them in the next few weeks.

• Arizona picked up a pair of commitments when it added Nick Johnson and Sidiki Johnson. Nick, a top 10 shooting guard, appears to be the star of the current Wildcat class, but Sean Miller is still out trying to fill up his class even after the sanctions the NCAA imposed upon the program.
• One of Miller’s target recruits, Jahii Carson, a top 10 point guard, opted against joining the Johnsons in Tucson and instead joined Herb Sendek when he committed to Arizona State last week.
• Staying in the southwestern part of the country, New Mexico State picked up a commitment from French-born Remi Barry who most recently went to high school in California. Barry will have to sit out a year as he didn’t qualify based on NCAA requirement, which is reportedly due to difficulty analyzing his academic transcript from two continents.
• Heading back east, Ohio State picked up a commitment from LaQuinton Ross, a small forward who was rated very highly early in his high school career, but has slid down some ranking lists due to injury. If we were Ross, we would take it easy on the talk of trying to fill Evan Turner‘s shoes in Columbus.
• Bernard Sullivan, a top 15 power forward, announced that he would be committing to Clemson after considering a variety of schools including Harvard, which technically cannot offer an athletic scholarship.
• Myck Kabongo, the #2 rated point guard in this year’s class, has been hearing a lot of rumors that he was wavering on his prior commitment to Texas and decided he needed to put an end to that speculation by coming out and reaffirming his commitment to Rick Barnes and the Longhorns.

• Tony Barbee picked up a pair of commitments this week when Willy Kouassi and Bernard Morena committed to Auburn. The pair, who are from the Ivory Coast and  are currently teammates at a school in Birmingham, Alabama, were reportedly a package deal. Their background is interesting as they have been moved around the country as a pair by their legal guardian/AAU coach (yeah, sounds sketchy to us too).
  Read the rest of this entry »

Howard Hochman is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

Around The Ivy League

• Coaching Carousel: Everything began when Steve Donahue left Cornell for his new home in Chestnut Hill, replacing Al Skinner as the new head man at Boston College, a considerable leap up in competition. Donahue’s leaving could not have come as a shock to the Cornell hierarchy. His stock was never higher thanks to the run his Big Red team made in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.  In a bit of tit-for-tat, Cornell AD Andy Noel looked to the ACC for a replacement for Donahue, and found one in Bill Courtney, recruiter extraordinaire, who has had stints at Virginia, Virginia Tech, VCU and most notably George Mason, whom he assisted to an improbable Final Four run in 2006. Can it be too long before Cornell, with a lot of rebuilding ahead, is once again loaded? The Columbia Lions went clear across the country and hired Kyle Smith, the longtime right-hand man to Randy Bennett at St. Mary’s. That school enjoyed much success the past few years with a roster composed of Australian imports. Finally, the Big Green of Dartmouth found a familiar face to take over the reins in the person of Paul Cormier. Cormier spent a few seasons in the NBA after a mediocre string as head man at Fairfield, and if you go further back, a rather successful run at — you guessed it — Dartmouth. The most recent hoop success in Hanover came way back when Cormier was the head guy. Good luck, Paul; while we applaud you giving it another shot, your team is light years away from being able to recruit and compete with the top dogs in the league.
• Ivy Controversy: Normally, recruiting violations and sanctions are reserved for the bigger programs, but Harvard may find itself in hot water. Tommy Amaker never made it to the Big Dance while at Michigan, but he cleaned up a program that was rife with violations. Now, on the verge of taking Harvard to its first NCAA appearance since 1946, he’s had to answer to what the NCAA calls “secondary violations.” It seems former Duke chum Kenny Blakeney did some circuitous traveling to play in summer pick-up games with potential Crimson recruits, including current Harvard players and Penn POY candidate Zack Rosen. Amaker later hired Blakeney as an assistant coach. These allegations aren’t as reprehensible as those allegedly committed by John Calipari, Tim Floyd, or Jerry Tarkanian; nor will they lead to any meaningful sanctions. But a hint of impropriety in a program that gained prominence because of their national recruiting success does raise some eyebrows.
• On Another Level: Two former Ivy stars are making news on the pro level tradition. First, former Harvard star Jeremy Lin signed a two-year contract with the Golden State Warriors. Lin became a YouTube sensation after holding his own against top overall pick John Wall when the two went head-to-head during the fourth quarter of a Summer League game. Off the court, former Yale star and 14-year NBA vet Chris Dudley just received the Republican nomination for Governor from the state of Oregon.

New Big Red coach Bill Courtney has the task of keeping Cornell at the top of the Ivy League (VCUathletics.tv)

Power Rankings (predicted league record in parenthesis):

1. Harvard (12-2): Yes, they lose Jeremy Lin, but they return three ultra-talented sophomores, including Freshman of the Year Kyle Casey. The 6’7 forward began last season as the 6th man but started the last ten games, averaging ten points and five rebounds per game. They also boast a sophomore backcourt that we see as a potential top-10 duo in the country in Brandyn Curry and Christian Webster. The latter scored 24 points in only 28 minutes in Harvard’s postseason loss to Appalachian St. Sprinkle in another prized recruiting class that includes a few players in the top 150 and you have all the ingredients for an Ivy Championship.
2. Princeton (11-3): They were six points away from hoisting the conference championship trophy last season, as two heartbreaking three-point losses to eventual champion Cornell did them in. Most publications project the Tigers as 2010-11 champs, as this is another team that returns a talented trio in top scorer Doug Davis, leading rebounder Dan Mavraides and late-blooming freshman Ian Hummer. We see a nip and tuck race with the depth of the Crimson being the deciding factor.
3. Penn (10-4): Don’t be surprised if Penn projects itself into the Ivy race this season. And if they do, it will be most assuredly on the back of last year’s RTC Ivy POY Zack Rosen. The 6’1 junior was at or near the top in five key stats, including leading the league in scoring. If he continues to mature as a player, he very well could receive a lot of national recognition, a la Jeremy Lin and Ryan Wittman last season. Now, if only the rest of the roster can remain healthy — a difficult task the past two years — the Quakers can take aim at what they consider their rightful place at the top of the league. Read the rest of this entry »

The NCAA unleashed the database for academic progress ratings (APRs) for coaches in six different sports on Thursday.  While it’s fun to plug in coaches from a few other sports — anyone surprised by Pete Carroll’s 971, 24 points higher than the college football average in 2008-09, and six-for-six over 925? — the most fun for us comes from plugging in the names of college basketball coaches and seeing how they did each year.

First, though, just a little background.  The NCAA uses this little metric to determine how a team’s athletes are moving toward the ultimate goal of graduating, and the formula they employ to come up with the number is pretty simple.  Each semester, every athlete gets a point for being academically eligible, and another for sticking with the school.  You add those up for your team, then divide by the number of points possible.  For some reason, they decided to multiply those  numbers by 1,000 to get rid of the resulting decimal point (otherwise, it would have been as confusing as, say, a batting average), so if you get a score of .970, that means you got 97% of the points possible, and your APR score is 970. If you fall below the NCAA’s mandated level of 925, you get a warning, and then penalties if you don’t improve.  Keep in mind, though, that if a coach changes schools, he shares his APR with the coach he replaced.  And, the database only goes through 2008-09 right now.  That’s why if you search for John Calipari, you’ll notice he has two APRs — a 980 that he received at Memphis which he shares with Josh Pastner, and a 922 for the same season at Kentucky which he shares with Billy Gillispie even though Calipari technically didn’t coach a game at Kentucky during that season.  Because he was hired in 2009, he shares the APR with the preceding coach.  You get the picture.

Why is this man smiling? How about two straight perfect APRs?

A couple of the numbers that people have been talking about the most since the database was released are the two perfect 1,000s put up by Bob Huggins‘ last two West Virginia teams.  Most college basketball fans like to point the dirty end of the stick at Huggins when it comes to academics, and he’s been a lightning rod since his days at Cincinnati; rightly so, since his last three years as Bearcat boss saw APRs of 917, 826, and a eyebrow-raising 782.  But his scores in Morgantown have been excellent, so he’d appreciate it if we all found a new poster boy for academic underachievement.

An AP report today specifically mentioned Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, who, in the six years the database covers, has had teams better than the national average — and over the 925 cutoff — only three times.  In fact, the APRs of his last three teams have steadily declined, posting scores of 981, 909, and (ouch) 844 from 2006-2009.  The same AP report fingered Kelvin Sampson as having even more harrowing results, having only two years in which he topped 900 (his 2004-05 Oklahoma squad scored exactly 900) — his 2003-04 Oklahoma team posted a 917, and his final roster at Indiana in 2007-08 turned in a downright hurtful 811.

With a new toy like this, there was no way we could keep from checking all of the APRs of the Ivy League schools.  The most impressive tally was by Columbia’s Joe Jones, who posted six straight perfect scores of 1,000 but will now evidently become an assistant on fellow Ivy man Steve Donahue’s Boston College team next season.  Only two teams in the league didn’t score a perfect score for the 2008-09 season.  The two bad boys of the league were Glen Miller, whose Penn team from that season put up — gasp! — a 950 (he had two straight perfect scores before that), and Tommy Amaker’s Harvard squad from that year, which posted a 985.

1. The people in Cambridge, Massachusetts seem to think that Tommy Amaker has turned things around and that the success will carry into this season and beyond because of Amaker’s ability to recruit and the school’s “name.”  While we think there is a better chance of fielding a solid basketball team than a solid football team at an Ivy League school because of the pure numbers — getting five to commit is easier than 23 (or 11 if your players are going two ways) — but we just don’t see that happening, at least on a consistent basis (Cornell last year was a little bit like catching lightning in a bottle). Our favorite part of the article is Andy Katz crediting Amaker with guiding Harvard to its first postseason appearance since 1946 last year, when they qualified for the CollegeInsider.com Tournament created just a year earlier. What’s next? Saying that a team is ranked just because Ken Pomeroy has them ranked even if they are 347th?
2. We haven’t talked much about this topic yet (at least compared to some other sites), but the news and columns about the potential ban on early recruiting keeps on building. Today’s news comes out of Atlanta where Paul Hewitt said what everybody has been thinking: the new rule will mean that coaches will just have “a wink and a nod” agreement.
3. We mentioned some of the early fall-out from the Kansas ticket scandal in yesterday’s Morning 5, but we are here with another update as a second former KU official has pleaded guilty to an identical charge. Right now the losses from the scandal are estimated to be between $1-3 million. We have a feeling more heads will roll in this case.
4. Since Mike Bellotti, who you may remember as the coach who infamously compared the BCS to “a bad disease, like cancer,” left Oregon to work at ESPN, the Ducks have been searching for a new athletic director. They finally announced a successor yesterday when they named Rob Mullens, previously at Kentucky, as their new athletic director. While Mullens’ old job required him to answer to approximately 4.3 million Kentuckians, his new job requires him to answer to just one man: Phil Knight.
5. Nice piece by Dana O’Neil about new Charlotte coach Alan Major and his unusual path to get a head coaching job. Coming out of high school, Major had a chance to play for a Division II school, but instead opted to go to Purdue and try to walk-on. When he failed to make the team, he decided to essentially become Gene Keady‘s apprentice where he essentially shadowed the coaches. Now after several stints as an assistant coach at various schools, Major gets his chance to be the man, but he won’t have an easy road as he replaces Bobby Lutz, who was fired after a 19-12 season (and the longest tenure in 49er history plus five NCAA tournament appearances and two Conference USA titles). That will not be an easy act to follow for the first-time head coach.

Ryan Restivo is an RTC correspondent and contributor.  He writes for SienaSaintsBlog as well as RotoSavants.com in his spare time.

Norm Roberts and Bobby Gonzalez joined the unemployment line this past week after both failed at Big East jobs.  Roberts, a former Kansas assistant coach and player at Queens College, could not hold onto the local talent in New York City to win at St. John’s. The Red Storm barely missed out on Lance Stephenson, losing him to Big East foe Cincinnati, which combined with an 81-101 record in six years brought him to the firing line.

Roberts Was Let Go on Friday (AP/N. Wass)

Meanwhile, across the Hudson in South Orange, it was Bobby Gonzalez’s fiery personality that did him in at Seton Hall. After four years and no NCAA Tournament appearances, Gonzalez was shown the door.  The firing came days after former Pirate Robert Mitchell was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary and possession of a weapon. The Pirates didn’t show much discipline on Tuesday night either: star Herb Pope was ejected in Tuesday night’s NIT game for punching a Texas Tech player in the groin and Gonzalez receive his seventh technical foul of the season.

The Dean of Seton Hall Law School, Patrick E. Hobbs, who also oversees the athletic department, said the school decided to fire Gonzalez before learning of Mitchell’s arrest.  Now both will be in the search to find candidates to bring more energy, and most of all wins, to the New York metro area schools.  Hobbs said that the contract extension given to Gonzalez was no additional financial risk for a school that cut four sports in February to save $1.5 million. Sources have said Seton Hall is expected to be looking to pay around $500,000 or slightly more as an annual salary to its next coach.

Meanwhile St. John’s was paying Roberts approximately $650,000 annually and could be expected to shell out more money for the candidate they desire. St. John’s Athletic Director Chris Monasch said the parameters of the coach they are looking for include NCAA Tournament appearances and good character. “We want to hire someone who has a record of success of getting into the NCAA tournament,” Monasch said to the AP. “In trying to find the right person, probably the safest choice is someone who has done it at this level, someone who believes in the mission of school and understands New York.”

Would Greenberg Entertain a Move to NYC?

No doubt the job that has better upside is St. John’s over Seton Hall. The Red Storm will return over 90% of its roster, nine scholarship rising seniors, and went 17-16 this year in Roberts’ highest win total. The Red Storm could be one big-time star New York City recruit away from being a Big East contender next year.  Here are some of the top names floating around as potential candidates for each of these two jobs.

• Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Zeitlin is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

This season saw an unprecedented three teams reach the 20-win plateau in the Ivy League — a dominant Cornell team headed to the NCAA Tournament (expected); a young, but extremely talented Harvard team (disappointing); and a resurgent Princeton team (surprising). Hopefully the latter two have earned an invite to one of the myriad of lesser post-season tournaments. Here’s a look at the final standings:

1. Cornell (13-1, 27-4): The final go-around for 10 seniors proved to be the best. Now the goal for Louis Dale, Jeff Foote, Ryan Wittman et al is to win a game or two in the tournament. A preview of their chances can be found below.
2. Princeton (11-3, 20-8): Two tough losses to Cornell sealed their fate, but they earned runner-up honors with a couple of victories over Harvard. A bright future with their top five scorers returning.
3. Harvard (10-4, 21-7): Beat everyone except the top two. Jeremy Lin’s loss via graduation will be felt, but in freshmen Brandyn Curry and Christian Webster, the Crimson boast a backcourt that can compete with the best nationally. Next year’s preseason choice.
4. Yale (6-8, 12-19): An up and down Ivy season for the Elis. The lone bright spot was All-Ivy senior guard Alex Zampier. He leaves New Haven as the school’s all-time assist leader while scoring over 1000 points.
5. Columbia (5-9, 11-17): The Lions earn the fifth spot over co 5-9ers Brown and Penn by virtue of their head-to-head sweep of both teams. Next year’s team will be built around sophomore Noruwa Agho, their only double digit scorer.
6. Brown (5-9, 11-20): Little to separate the Bears from the Quakers other than a slightly better overall record, so they get the nod here. Stat machine Matt Mullery (team leader in points, rebounds, and assists) leaves after a fine career.
7. Penn (5-9, 6-22): The record was something that Palestra fans (those that showed up) were not used to. Nor were early-season injuries and a mid-season coaching change. Sophomore point guard and Player of the Year candidate Zack Rosen is already a star.
8. Dartmouth (1-13, 5-23): Not much to cheer about in Hanover. Hopefully Mark Graupe can breathe some enthusiasm into a program that has pretty much been the league doormat for a while. Most of the top players return.

Postseason Awards
Without fanfare we present you with the best of the 2009-2010 Ivy League basketball season:

All-Conference Team

• Ryan Wittman 6-7 Sr F—Cornell
• Matt Mullery 6-8 Sr. F–Brown
• Jeff Foote 7-0 Sr. C–Cornell
• Jeremy Lin 6-3 Sr. G–Harvard
• Zack Rosen 6-1 So. G–Penn
• Alex Zampier 6-3 Sr, G—Yale
• Louis Dale 5-11 Sr. G—Cornell

All-Freshman Team

• Kyle Casey 6-7 F–Harvard
• Tucker Halpern 6-8 F–Brown
• Andrew McCarthy 6-8 F–Brown
• Ian Hummer 6-7 F–Princeton
• Brandyn Curry 6-1 G–Harvard
• Christian Webster 6-5 G—Harvard

Statistical Leaders

• Points per game: Zack Rosen (Penn)–17.7
• FG %: Jeff Foote (Cornell)—62.3%
• FT %: Zack Rosen (Penn)—86.2%
• 3-point FG %: Jon Jaques (Cornell)—48.8%
• Rebounds per game: Jeff Foote (Cornell)—8.2
• Assists per game: Louis Dale (Cornell)—4.8
• Steals per game: Jeremy Lin (Harvard)—2.5
• Blocks per game: Greg Mangano (Yale)—2.0

Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Zeitlin is the RTC correspondent for the Ivy League.

The Not Ready For Prime Time Players

It probably started with the nationally acclaimed recruiting class. It picked up momentum in early December when Jeremy Lin and his 30 points nearly singlehandedly upset then-Big East powerhouse UConn.

It gathered steam with a victory against Boston College, followed soon by a seven-game winning streak. And it came to a boiling point with stories in Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal prior to a showdown with Cornell.

We are talking about expectations…specifically those for the Harvard Crimson. The trouble with expectations is that they rarely turn out as you would hopefully…expect. And in this case, they exploded on Jan. 30 when Cornell administered an 86-50 dose of reality. In retrospect, perhaps we were all guilty of anointing Harvard as a serious Ivy threat too soon. After all, its roster is composed of — amazingly — seven sophomores and seven freshmen. And its schedule, aside from a brutal three-game stretch against UConn, B.C. and Georgetown in December, was ultra-soft. The combined records of the schools Harvard has beaten (not counting Division III neighbor MIT and considering vanquished Ivy foes only once) stands at 152-224, and that figure is somewhat softened by William & Mary at 19-8.

In fact, Harvard has beaten only THREE teams with a winning record — the aforementioned Tribe (thrashed in their BracketBuster game by Iona), BU, and GW. None of those inspire fear. Harvard has lost to the other five teams on their schedule with winning records — Army, UConn, Georgetown, Cornell (twice), and Princeton. The latter three games represent the defining moments of Harvard’s season. Given his coaching history, Tommy Amaker is an easy target. But with a youthful roster, a resurgent and rebuilt Princeton team, and a powerhouse up in Ithaca, it is clear that all those expectations were, indeed, unrealistic.

The true measure of this team will come in succeeding seasons. Will all those recruits stay happy and keep coming — knowing that, while they will receive a superb education, they will play in relative obscurity? Cornell loses much of its strength via graduation but Princeton is back to where Princeton expects (there’s that word again) to be and Penn may be on that road as well. Harvard may likely be the sexy Ivy pick for the 2010-11 season and with it will come more … expectations.

A Non-Ivy Footnote (or, Six Degrees of Separation from Craig Robinson)

It has been a month since President Barack Obama sat down with Verne Lundquist and Clark Kellogg at halftime of the Georgetown-Duke game. And it got me thinking. Now, nothing against Special K, who we remember as a dominant forward for THE Ohio State University and who we regard as one of the finest nuts-and-bolts analysts of the college game. But we lament the fact that CBS decided to break up the Lundquist/Bill Raftery team. Their rapport and repartee was delightful, sometimes irreverent, and always spontaneous and unrehearsed. It was definitely good for a few laughs, especially during the most one-sided games. Imagine if they were still together for Barack Banter at halftime. We would have found out if he had suggested to his campaign contributors to “send it in”; if he addressed Congress as a group or “mantaman”; or if he tucked his daughters in at night with a “kiiisss” and if he left Michelle with some of her “lingerie on the deck”; and most importantly, could he deal with some of the problems in the Middle East with “onions!”

And now on to the power rankings. With two weekends of Ivy play remaining, the top spots, while technically still up for grabs, are sorting themselves out. The middle is a muddle. And at the bottom, even Dartmouth broke into the win column. Here’s how we see it:

1. Cornell (9-1, 23-4): The Big Red recovered from the Score Heard ‘Round the World (a 79-64 loss to Penn for those of you more interested in triple salchows) with three straight workmanlike victories. They took over undisputed possession of first place by beating Princeton at their own game — holding them to 45 points and 36% shooting. Then they shot the lights out versus Harvard (50% FG, 52% from three) and Dartmouth (57% FG, 60% from three) to finish their four-game road trip. A third straight trip to the Dance should be coming soon.
2. Princeton (7-2, 16-7): The loss to Cornell at home was understandable. The loss to Brown at home was inexcusable — especially for a team that was still in contention for Ivy crown. They allowed the Bears to shoot 58% and score 57 points, five more than their NCAA-leading defensive scoring average. An opportunity for atonement arrives tonight when the Tigers travel to Ithaca — a game which represents the last chance for some down-to-the-wire Ivy excitement.
3. Harvard (7-3, 18-6): Only a possible shot at second place (and perhaps some post-season-play in a tourney not named NCAA) likely awaits the Crimson thanks to that Feb. 19 loss to Cornell. That shot at the runner-up spot will come on March 6 when they close the season at Princeton. It is hard to imagine a likely 20-win season being disappointing (see above) for any Ivy team, but the goals were higher in Cambridge. The good news is that while Harvard will lose Jeremy Lin, they will return 15 out of the 18 players on their roster.
4. Brown (4-6,10-17): OK, so, why the Bears to round out the top half of the conference and not Penn? Here’s the logic:  they have split games so head-to-head doesn’t apply. Brown has a better overall record, albeit against a weaker schedule. And while they both have games vs. Harvard and Cornell still remaining, Penn visits Princeton to end the season. So this ranking is a projection. Besides we applaud Brown’s rare (for any Ivy team over the past 30 years) southern double weekend-road wins vs. Penn and Princeton.
5. Penn (4-5, 5-18): This could have been a resurgence, redemption, replacement (as in coaching) and an all-is right-with-the-world paragraph. Instead, the postgame euphoria that was evident after the Doug Gottllieb hyperbole win versus Cornell was followed by three straight home losses. With road contests against Cornell and Princeton sandwiched around a home date with Harvard, the hopes for a .500 conference record look bleak — but with almost everyone returning next season, more Palestra magic will be back again soon.
6. Yale (4-6, 10-17): The Elis have exactly the same record as Brown and a better overall record than Penn. But they are kind of like 2009 football Giants — they get their wins against the teams they are supposed to beat. Their only wins in their last seven games have come at the expense of bottom-feeders Columbia and Dartmouth. And their lost loss to Penn definitively relegated them the sixth spot in the power rankings.
7. Columbia (3-7, 9-15): The disappointing Lions appear to have a firm grasp of seventh place. A road win at the Palestra (thanks to Niko Scott’s 29 points and an amazing seven 3-pointers) is the only thing that has kept Columbia from a five-game losing streak. They would need to win their last four games (unlikely) to keep Coach Joe Jones’ string of .500 conference seasons intact.
8. Dartmouth (1-9, 5-19): A victory on Feb. 19 vs. Columbia averted a winless conference season for the Big Green. The good news is that they have actually had at least two players in double figures in their last three games — led by junior guard Ronnie Dixon with 46 points during that span. The glass half full approach in Hanover (for a team that ranks 326 out of 347 in RPI) has to be that five out of the top six scorers return. Come to think of it, that may be the glass half empty approach as well.