Head of the class

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1. Sorting out Ivy League contenders

The Ivy League stands out from most college basketball conferences in the transfer portal era. Most program must focus on transfers, scouting the portal and frequently rebuilding entire rosters. Meanwhile, the Ivy is the only league that returns more than one full-time starter for each program.

The Ivy does still lose players, and it’s often the best ones. Four of the 10 All-Ivy players won’t play for the same team in 2025-26. Princeton lost Xaivian Lee to Florida, while Caden Pierce will sit this year and graduate before transferring next year. Penn’s Sam Brown will play at Davidson, while Cornell’s AK Okereke is off to Vandy.

And the ones who did return key cogs? They’re in good shape.

Yale, the regular-season and conference tournament champs, seniors Bez Mbeng and John Poulakidis graduated, but Nick Townsend (15.4 PPG, 7.1 rpg), Casey Simmons (8.8 ppg, 4.6 rpg), Samson Aletan (7.5 ppg), and Isaac Celiscar (7.1 ppg) all return. The only issue is that all of them are forwards. They’ll need to rely on sophomore Trevor Mullin or freshmen Courtney Wallace Jr. and Alvin Loving to make an instant contribution.

Most will tab Yale as the preseason favorites. Don’t sleep on Harvard, though.

The Crimson return their top three scorers, led by sophomore guard Robert Hinton (14.6 PPG). Hinton was Harvard’s best player from day one, so it feels like he’s almost underrated with how good of a first-year he produced, let alone his summer spent playing with Chinese Taipei.

Guard Chandler Pigge (13.7 PPG, 6.7 rpg) was one of the two All-League honorable mentions last year, largely due to his dominant defense. He also improved his scoring and should become even better in 2025. The third top scorer is forward Thomas Batties II (11 ppg), who can stretch out defenses with his 38.8% shooting from downtown.

If Harvard can get consistency from its fourth and fifth options, it can push Yale. That’s likely on sophomores Austin Hunt and Tey Barbour.

Another All-Ivy returner is Dartmouth's Brandon Mitchell-Day (13.6 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 2.8 apg), a prototypical stud Ivy League big. He's improved his shooting to 33.3% from 3, but also shot 80% from the line. So there could be untapped shooting potential. He's also a great passer and decision-maker. We’ll see if Dartmouth leans on him and runs the offense through him.

Another league factor: Fran McCaffrey is coaching at Penn. The fiery former Iowa coach kept star wing Ethan Roberts (16.8 ppg), who might be the league’s top player. It would be huge if former top-30 recruit TJ Power, who spent time at Duke and Virginia, became a stud for the Quakers.

That’s the likely top four, but I also want to spotlight Cornell, which lost in the Ivy League championship to Yale. It lost a few key seniors in Nazir Williams and Guy Ragland, and one non-senior transfer in Okereke.

Yet the guard duo of Cooper Noard (13.2 ppg) and Jake Fiegen (10.4) ppg has a case for being the best in the conference, which should have Cornell in the mix. Plus, they also added a transfer this cycle, adding Valpo forward Kasper Sepp (3.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg).

2. Duke-Texas Tech adds to NYC holiday fun + more schedule notes

Need an excuse to hit BYC for Christmas festivities? Duke-Texas Tech at Madison Square Garden may be the answer.

The Dec. 20 showdown has plenty of fun storylines, too.

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