While all teams strive to do well in the early non-conference season, it is ultimately the conference schedule that matters. With no postseason to decide the champion of the Ivy League, the men's basketball team's conference schedule amounts to a 14-game tournament, in which every game counts.
Two-time defending champ Penn is a nearly unanimous pick to claim the Ivy crown this year, receiving all but one first-place vote in the Ivy League preseason poll. That final vote went to the Tigers, whom the media picked for a second-place finish. Cornell was tabbed for the third spot, followed by Yale, Columbia, Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth.
"I think, obviously, Penn's the favorite — they've got three starters back," Princeton head coach Joe Scott '87 said. "But I think it's an open league. Some teams lost guys, some teams got everybody back. I think we're going to have to wait and see.
The favorite
Penn has plenty of reasons to be favored for a third straight title. The Quakers return three of their starters from their title team, including two first-team All-Ivy selections. Senior guard Ibrahim Jaaber is the reigning unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year and an honorable mention All-America. His 18.2 points per game led the Ivy League.
Forward Mark Zoller's 12.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game also earned him first-team All-Ivy honors, while forward Steve Danley's 8.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game earned him honorable mention. Penn also boasts a strong class of incoming recruits, with two freshmen post players garnering three-star ratings from the recruit-tracking website Scout.com.
Penn's most notable off-season change, however, was on the bench. Legendary coach Fran Dunphy left for Temple after a 17-year tenure with the Quakers in which he accumulated 190 league wins, second only to Princeton's Pete Carril on the all-time list. Filling Dunphy's large shoes is Glen Miller, who amassed a 93-99 record as Brown's head coach the past seven seasons.
The contender
Cornell is aiming for its third straight top-three finish in league play, and may have its best squad in recent memory. The Big Red boasts one of the strongest backcourts in the conference, piloted by point guard Graham Dow. Dow led the Ivies in league play with 3.84 assists per game, while ranking third with both 2.1 steals per game and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.38.
Shooting guard Adam Gore earned second-team All-Ivy honors and was a unanimous selection for Ivy League Rookie of the Year, averaging a Cornell freshman record 12.9 points per game. Gore can score from anywhere on the floor, and is able to break down defenses in much the same way Scott Greenman '06 did for the Tigers last year.
In the frontcourt for the Big Red, tenacious center Andrew Naeve will lead a very deep unit, seeking to improve on his averages of 7.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game last year.
The pretenders
Yale, Columbia and Brown all return several starters from decent seasons and have an outside chance to crack the Ivy top three.
Yale returns four of its starters from a team that finished .500 in league play for fourth place in 2005-06, but the one starter who is gone is first-team All-Ivy big man Dominick Martin, the Bulldogs' leading scorer and rebounder last year.
Taking on Martin's load in the frontcourt will be seniors Sam Kaplan and Casey Hughes. Kaplan scored 10.6 points per game and shot an impressive .546 from the field last season, while Hughes grabbed 5.7 boards a game. The Bulldogs' backcourt is led by honorable mention All-Ivy Eric Flato, whose 11.9 points and 2.9 assists per game ranked ninth and fifth in the league, respectively.
Columbia returns two studs from a team that finished 4-10 in league play last season. Forward John Baumann was fifth in the league with 13.7 points per game and sixth with six rebounds per game, while point guard Brett Loscalzo dished out an impressive 3.07 assists per game.
If the Lions are going to crack the top half of the league, they will need a breakout season from off-guard Justin Armstrong, a pure scorer who broke Princeton's heart last year with a last-second baseline jumper that gave Columbia a 65-64 win.
Leading the charge for Brown will be second-team All-Ivy forward Keenan Jeppesen, who put up 11.1 points per game last season, and was devastating in league play to the tune of 16.1 points per game. Jeppesen turned in a pair of 25-point outpourings, against Dartmouth and later Columbia. Jeppesen was also second in the Ivies in steals.
Following the departure of Glen Miller for league foe Penn, Brown hired a familiar face to the Princeton community. Craig Robinson '83 was a two-time Ivy Player of the Year as a Tiger under Pete Carril. He will work to bring Brown's offensive and defensive philosophies closer to that of his own alma mater.
The cellar
Harvard will be led by shooting guard Jim Goffredo, whose average of 14.9 points per game last year was exceeded only by Jaaber. Goffredo burned Dartmouth for 33 points and Brown for 30, showing both good shooting touch from outside and the ability to drive and get to the foul line.
Brian Cusworth — a seven-foot former All-Ivy center — will lead Harvard's frontcourt, but not for the portion of the Crimson's season that concerns Princeton. Cusworth's career has been marred by injuries, and his college eligibility will expire when Harvard's first semester ends, four games into the Ivy season and before Harvard faces the Tigers for the first time.
Following Cusworth's departure, the Crimson will be left with a serious dearth of veteran leadership, placing a possibly unmanageable burden on Goffredo.
Dartmouth finished in a tie for seventh with Columbia last season, and it is likely that the Big Green will make a Big Stink for the second straight season. While Dartmouth lost both its leading scorer, Mike Lang, and best defender, Calvin Arnold, to graduation, the Big Green does regain point guard Marion Sanders, who played well two years ago but sat out last season due to injury.
Dartmouth also brought in a couple of strong recruits who are expected to reinforce what was a barren frontcourt, but any significant contributions on that front should be a year or two in the making.
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