Tag: Yale

Mike Brey hosting Selection Sunday watch party for Notre Dame players

No, Notre Dame is not going to the NCAA Tournament.

No, Notre Dame is not going to the NCAA Tournament. An at-large bid for a team that went 11-15 goes against all decency, even for power conference  programs. But the Irish still are going to gather to watch the Selection Sunday show on CBS. In fact, Mike Brey will be hosting the players at his home.

Unless there’s a dramatic development in the near future, this undoubtedly is a sign that Jack Swarbrick is going to allow Brey to come back next year. It would harder to convince someone of that if Brey and his players were keeping their distance from each other and not because of COVID-19. Brey has confidence in the team he’ll have next year, so he might as well be afforded the opportunity to see it through.

In addition to the large group of returnees, the Irish will welcome former Ivy League Player of the Year Paul Atkinson from Yale and South Bend products Blake Wesley and J.R. Konieczny. There’s talent already in place and new blood coming in to supplant it. Like the world we live in, better days hopefully are ahead soon. In this case, we’ll have to wait eight months to find out if this program has gotten much better.

Get ready for March Madness by registering in advance for USA TODAY Sports’ bracket sweepstakes. In the meantime, mobile users can play USA TODAY Sports’ Couchketball virtual hoops challenge – the interactive basketball game where your skills determine the outcome.

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Top Ivy League Player Paul Atkinson Jr. Transferring to Notre Dame

Notre Dame could be getting a big bump in scoring next season.

Notre Dame could be getting a big bump in scoring next season. Yale’s Paul Atkinson Jr., the defending Ivy League Player of the Year, will join the Irish as a graduate transfer. The Ivy League opted not to play this season because of COVID-19, so this will be Atkinson’s first real basketball action in almost two years. He figures to fill the gaps that will be left by graduating seniors Juwan Durham and Nikola Djogo.

During the 2019-20 season, the 6-foot-10, 220-pound Atkinson shattered previous career highs with 17.6 points and 7.3 rebounds a game. He never scored fewer than 10 points in a game, and he also led the Ivy League by shooting 63.0 percent from the field. In fact, he’s the conference’s career field-goal percentage leader (66.1 percent) going back to the 1985-86 season. It will be very interesting to see if his game does just as well in the ACC and with more opportunities against other power conference teams.

Is Alabama in the midst of a historic dynasty?

Are we witnessing one of the greatest runs in all of sports with Alabama?

With last nights resounding victory over Ohio State, Nick Saban and Alabama have won 6 of the last 12 national titles. That’s rare air in any era of college football, in any sport as a matter of fact. What is even more fascinating is that fact that the Crimson Tide are not done, their domination of the college football world most likely is not coming to an end anytime soon.

Why, you ask? Just look at the recruiting classes that Saban continues to bring in, since their run of titles began in 2009, the lowest ranked class was 5th in 2018, with 9 of those classes having the top distinction by the 247Sports composite. Of those nine, 7 of them came in a row from 2011 through 2017. They have been first or second since their fall from the top in ‘18.

Absurd, it’s something that we may never see again. We are witnessing history right in front of our eyes. Notre Dame has had a similar run in college football, winning 4 titles in 7 years after Minnesota’s that saw the Gophers win 5 titles in 8 years. But that was over 70 years ago! Yale had an amazing run as well, in the 1870’s and 80’s, so they’re included in the conversation but that is nothing close to what modern football is now.

The SEC tent pole program now needs to be compared to some of the best dynasties in all of sports, the Chicago Bulls of the 90’s, UCLA basketball in the 60’s and 70’s, the Yankees in the 50’s and that’s probably it. There have been plenty of shorter term runs, but the Crimson Tide has put themselves into extremely elite territory.

What is currently happening in Tuscaloosa is something we probably won’t ever see again in college football or really in any sport due to the extreme parity now with elite athletes everywhere. That’s what makes this Alabama dominance so impressive in my eyes. Their run is one for the ages, which has earned them a place with the greatest dynasties of all time.

When it is all said and done, we will probably look back and marvel at what the Tide have been able to accomplish across two decades of college football. They will undoubtably go down as one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports.

Notre Dame lands impressive grad-transfer

Notre Dame basketball landed a huge piece of the 2021-22 puzzle as Paul Atkinson announced his commitment on Sunday night.

Mike Brey may have landed his biggest recruit to date on Sunday as grad-transfer to be Paul Atkinson has announced his intention to play at Notre Dame next season.

Atkinson started 60 games in three seasons at Yale and averaged 17.6 points and 7.3 rebounds per game last season as he was named Ivy League Co-Player of the Year.

The Ivy League choosing not to play winter sports this year left Atkinson in a bit of a bind, but Notre Dame will gladly take his commitment.

Atkinson calls West Palm Beach, Florida home and attended high school at Westminster Christian School.

out his 2019-20 highlights below:

 

Ivy League cancels sports, football included, this fall

The Ivy League has canceled all sports for the fall of 2020. Is it a sign of things to come for the rest of college football?

The Ivy League announced on Wednesday that they will not be playing any sports this coming fall, football included.  They’re the first Division 1 conference to announce such a decision while no announcement about winter or spring sports for the conference was made.

The Ivy League was the first conference to cancel their basketball tournament back in March and many seem to think they’re again setting the precedent that other conferences and schools will soon follow.

One different way to look at this though and what makes it different for the Ivy League versus the majority of the rest of college football is the money element.  Ivy League schools and athletic departments don’t rely on football funding for nearly as much as the major college football programs do.

Although I have trouble thinking this means major college football isn’t going to get played in 2020 because the Ivy League acted quickly and first, I’d be lying if I said this announcement made me feel good about the chances college football starts on time for the rest of the nation.

Ivy League announces fall sports are canceled

The Ivy League announced it is canceling all fall sports for 2020.

There will be no football or other sports in the Ivy League this fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced Wednesday.

The eight schools that comprise the conference could be looking at a spring schedule — possibly playing against each other. However, no decision has been made regarding that possibility.

“The feeling is that once we made the decision to postpone fall sports, we will have some time to assess the situation (pandemic) before making a decision about playing next spring,” one Ivy League source told SI.com.

The release:

With the safety and well-being of students as their highest priority, Ivy League institutions are implementing campus-wide policies including restrictions on student and staff travel, requirements for social distancing, limits on group gatherings, and regulations for visitors to campus. As athletics is expected to operate consistent with campus policies, it will not be possible for Ivy League teams to participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester.

Practice and other athletic training opportunities for enrolled student-athletes will be permitted provided they are structured in accordance with each institution’s procedures and applicable state regulations. The Ivy League will also issue guidelines on a phased approach to conditioning and practice activities to allow for interaction among student-athletes and coaches that will begin with limited individual and small group workouts and build to small group practice sessions, if public health conditions permit.

Fall sport student-athletes will not use a season of Ivy League or NCAA eligibility in the fall, whether or not they enroll. Students who wish to pursue competition during a fifth-year will need to work with their institutions in accordance with campus policy to determine their options beyond their current anticipated graduation date.

The question in the bigger picture is will this decision have an impact on college football as a whole.

Alabama basketball target Jordan Bruner makes college decision

Yale graduate transfer Jordan Bruner announced on Friday where he’ll be finishing his collegiate basketball career.

Jordan Bruner has finally made his decision on where he’ll finish his collegiate basketball career. On Friday, the Yale graduate transfer announced he’ll be joining the Alabama Crimson Tide.

This is a huge addition to an already impressive 2020 recruiting class for Nate Oats and the rest of the Alabama basketball program.

Bruner was being heavily pursued by several of the nation’s top schools and had recently narrowed his choices down to three: Alabama, Baylor and Maryland.

The 6-foot-9 forward from Columbia (S.C.) brings a versatile skill set to Tuscaloosa, as he almost averaged a double-double for Yale last season (10.9 points, 9.2 rebound per game).

Bruner is also an effective player on the defensive end of the courst, as he averaged 1.7 blocks as well.

In addition to Bruner, the Crimson Tide have also added other key members to its 2020 class within the last couple of weeks. Included in those additions are five-star guard Josh Primo, four-star JUCO guard Keon Ellis and three-star forward Darius Miller.

Alabama already had four-star forward Keon Ambrose-Hylton committed as well.

Combine those with the arrivals of Jahvon Quinerly, Juwan Gary and James Rojas, and this Alabama basketball team is going to look vastly different than it did during the 2019-20 season.

Oats and company are still waiting on any potential return announcements from John Petty, Herb Jones or Kira Lewis Jr. But even if all three choose to stick to leaving early for the 2020 NBA Draft, the Tide look to be in good shape.

Stay tuned for more Alabama basketball and recruiting updates from Roll Tide Wire!

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Harvard player is furious about ‘horrible, horrible decision’ to cancel Ivy League tournament

“Everyone knows the risks of playing!”

The Ivy League tournaments to decide which team from the conference would clinch a bids to both the women’s and men’s 2020 NCAA tourney were canceled on Tuesday, per an announcement.

The concern was for “the health of students as well as the campus and the general community” with the continuing spread of coronavirus, and the decision handed the titles to the Princeton women’s team and the Yale men’s squad.

It was that decision that angered Bryce Aiken, the Crimson guard and leading scorer. Harvard beat Yale in their two meetings this season and his university was set to host the tournament. Here’s what he tweeted:

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Harvard and Yale players warm up through an climate change protest

The student protest on climate change delayed Saturday’s rivalry game.

Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time and we’re not making light of it.

With that being said, this video of students protesting climate change on the field in the middle of warm-ups during the Harvard-Yale game is absolutely the wildest thing I’ve seen all day.

Out of nowhere a horde of students come into the camera and begin sitting in on the field. As that happens, the players on the field just continue their warm up like it’s absolutely nothing.

Harvard’s kickers who are warming up just…move their footballs up a bit further. The Yale players stretching just continue to stretch like it’s business as usual. The protestors held a banner that read “Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice.”

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