News and Notes: Around the Ivy League

Above, Cornell's Louis Dale returns healthy to the Big Red for the 2009-2010 season. Dale, the 2007-2008 Ivy League Player of the Year, missed the first 8 games of 2008-2009 due to a hamstring injury. Dale managed to play in the team's final 23 games despite lingering pain. He was a repeat First Team All Ivy League selection.

In news and notes around the Ivy League, former Penn basketball player, Steve Danley writes another article for the New York Times. Cornell's Jon Jaques is a regular contributor for the New York Times. Click here to see all of Jon's archived articles.

In other news, the official Penn Basketball twitter account wrote the following today:

How much different will it be for Quaker fans in 2009-10 with a healthy Darren Smith, Andreas Schreiber, & Tyler Bernardini, among others? All 3 are on their way back as well as Justin Reilly, Mike Howlett, and Larry Loughery - each of whom was hurt for most of 2008-09...

Our response is that Penn's tweet is overly optimistic and completely ignores the tremendous roster upgrades made around the league by Penn's Ivy opponents. For example, the two-time defending Ivy League Champions, the Cornell Big Red return all five starters plus seven of the team's top eight players in minutes played and points averaged from a year ago. Cornell also adds two immediate impact, All-Ivy caliber transfers in 6'4" high scoring guard, Max Groebe from UMass and bruising interior player, 6'9" 245 lb. Mark Coury from the University of Kentucky. The Big Red also expect big things from several of the new freshmen. In short, Penn may make improvements in its caliber of play this year, but the final results in the Ivy standings may be the same from a year ago-- a lower division finish for Penn. And Penn's fans will continue to complain.

In roster report news, below is a list of players who were on Ivy Leagye rosters at the beginning of last season, but left their team due to reasons other than exhaustion of NCAA eligibility and/or graduation. Teams with high numbers of departures are strong indicators of player dissatisfaction and team chemistry issues within the locker rooms.

BROWN
Noel Hollingsworth
Morgan Kelly
Colin Aldridge

COLUMBIA
none

CORNELL
none

DARTMOUTH
Brandon Ware

HARVARD
Eric Groszyk
T.J. Carey
Kyle Fitzgerald
Adam Demuyakor
Ndu Okereke
Darryl Finkton
Cem Dinc
Alex Blankenau

PENN
Tommy McMahon
Harrison Gaines
Remy Cofield
Garvin Hunt

PRINCETON
Unknown- 2009-2010 roster not yet available

YALE

none


[edited 3:45 pm]