Ivy insights

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Good morning! The season is right around the corner and we still have eligibility question marks. Isn’t that fun? Let’s get to the news.

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1. Notables from Ivy League media day

We were back with another media day, this time covering the Ivy League. Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster spoke with all eight coaches and one player from each program to discuss the upcoming season.

The show is linked above, and you should go listen, but here are some quotes and notes from the media day: 

• Penn was voted to win the league after Fran McCaffery’s first season resulted in an NCAA Tournament berth. TJ Power led the way, but he struggled with confidence at multiple stops. How did McCaffery get that back?: “It was easy because the talent was there. He makes plays off the bounce, he’s a 3-point shooter, post-player. When he was at those places, he was going in and out of the game. There were games that we won strictly because of this guy.”

• Tommy Amaker is looking to get Harvard back into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015: “I like our chances. We’ve had some hard times a few years ago, but I like the growth of our program. The personnel and the guys have worked really hard to put us in this position. I think we’re in the mix of having one of those teams that could compete for it.”

• James Jones has done a great job at Yale over the years as has been to four NCAA Tournaments in the last six seasons. He lost Ivy League POTY Nick Townsend. How do they plan on filling that gap?: “We fill it with the guys we have in the locker room. It’s always a next man up mentality for us. There’s always somebody waiting in the wings that didn’t have the opportunity last season.”

• Princeton is coming off a disappointing 9-20 season, but Mitch Henderson returns the entire roster. Where has the biggest growth been?: “The biggest leap is in experience. We know who we are in a far better way. It’s a very much senior driven league here in the Ivy League. I feel really good about the leadership.”

• Cornell’s Jon Jaques heads into his third season, and Jacob Beccles has been with him every step of the way so far. What does it mean to Coach Jaques that he’s still there?: “It’s obviously a tremendous asset for the team. So we’re really excited for him to take the next step and he’s off to a great start. It’s huge because we do lose some pretty good players, but to have someone who knows how we operate is huge for us for sure.”

• Columbia’s Kevin Hovde is now going into his second season. What did he learn in year one?: “The biggest thing for us is we did a really good job simplifying things last year for our guys. We developed a good physical, hard-playing identity, which is probably the most important thing in year one.”

• Brett MacConnell steps into his first year at Dartmouth and comes over from Stanford where he was an assistant for Kyle Smith. Why did he decide to leave Palo Alto for Manchester?: “Definitely love the league. They did a great job sharing their vision. I really believe in the school’s potential and the basketball potential.”

2. UConn, Arizona win exhibition debuts

I'll take UConn vs. Syracuse any time we get it, even in exhibition form. All the old Big East nostalgia just hits different with that matchup. On Tuesday, the Huskies toppled Syracuse, 72-52, at the Mohegan Sun.

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