Ivy Honors

TigerBlog will keep this right here all week as the Ivy League basketball tournaments come to Jadwin Gym:

Friday
Women's semifinal - No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Penn, 4:30
Women's semifinal - No. 2 Columbia vs. No. 3 Harvard, 7

Saturday
Men's semifinal - No. 1 Yale vs. No. 4 Cornell, 11 a.m.
Men's semifinal - No. 2 Princeton vs. No. 3 Penn, approximately 1:30 (30 minutes after the end of the first game)
Women's final - Princeton/Penn winner vs. Columbia/Harvard winner, 5

Sunday
Men's final - Yale/Cornell winner vs. Princeton/Penn winner, noon

For tournament ticket information, click HERE. 

TigerBlog read how Caden Pierce was named Princeton's seventh Ivy League Rookie of the Year in men's basketball yesterday and gave himself a quiz. Could he name the other six? 

He's thinking about it. 

As you see from the schedule above, Ivy Madness is right around the corner. It's coming to Jadwin Gym this weekend, with the top four men's and women's teams in the conference.

It’s the beginning of #IvyMadness week.

Time to lock in. #GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/k7kudnPud6

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) March 6, 2023

The Ivy League honors were announced yesterday for the men. In addition to Pierce's rookie honor, Tosan Evbuomwan was a first-team selection and Matt Allocco was a second-team selection. 

Evbuowman, the Player of the Year a year ago, lost out to Penn's Jordan Dingle this time around. TB most definitely would have chosen Evbuomwan, especially considering how much of the offense flows through him. Princeton's big man led the league in assists for the second straight year, and his 4.9 per game were 1.3 more than the next best total.

Brian Taylor was the first Ivy Rookie of the Year, back in 1971. That's before there was even a Player of the Year Award, which TB has always found odd. There wasn't an Ivy Player of the Year until 1974-75; TB needs to figure out why the rookies came first. Anyway, Brian Taylor. So that's one. Spencer Weisz is another (TB knew that even before he read it in the All-Ivy story).

The women's All-Ivy teams will be announced today. Just as the men's Player of the Year award figured to be between Evbuomwan and Dingle, the women's award figures to be between Princeton's Kaitlyn Chen and Columbia's Abby Hsu.

It'll be hard to quibble with whoever wins, though TB again would vote for Chen (are you detecting a Princeton bias)? 

Hsu is the league's leading scorer at 17.9. Chen is fifth, at 17.4. Princeton's next highest scorer is Julia Cunningham, who is 17th, followed by Grace Stone in 19th and Madison St. Rose in 21st. It's great scoring balance on a team that is built around defense. 

St. Rose, by the way, has a great shot at Rookie of the Year.

Speaking of which, Pierce is Princeton's seventh on the men's side. Taylor and Weisz are two. That leaves four. TB will go with Bob Roma and Rick Hielscher. He's positive of those two, which leaves two more.

Not surprisingly, a Carla Berube-coached team once again has led the Ivy League in scoring defense, something that's happened each year she's been the Tiger head coach. This season, Princeton allows 52.8 points per game, or six fewer than second-place Penn, its semifinal opponent.

If you're in the "defense wins championships" camp, that's a big plus for the women. And the women's tournament does feature four teams who are in the top five in the league in scoring defense.

 On the other hand, all four women's teams and all four men's teams in the tournament are in the top four in scoring offense. And on the men's side, the four teams rank first (Yale), third (Princeton), fifth (Penn) and eighth (Cornell) in scoring defense.

So TB needs two more Rookies of the Year. It's not Kit Mueller. He remembers that. It's not anyone who played from 1996-98 either. Chris Young? Yes. He'll go with Chris Young. TB doesn't specifically remember that, but Young was so dominant as as rookie that it had to be him. And the last one? He'd guess Armond Hill or Frank Sowinski. Okay. He'll say Armond ... and he'll be wrong. Well, he got six of seven. Taylor, Roma, Hielscher, Young, Weisz, Pierce. The one he missed was Konrad Wysocki in 2001.

Lastly, TB wishes a Happy 92nd Birthday to the great John McPhee. TB hopes to still be out there riding when he's 92, just like McPhee still does.