The Ivy League will announce plans for the fall sports season on Wednesday, July 8. (PHOTO COURTESY: IvyLeague.com)
By Matt Noonan
No official announcement has been made as of late this afternoon, but according to various reports, it appears as if the Ivy League will not being playing fall sports this year.
In addition to no fall sports, Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wetzel is reporting that none of the Ancient Eight winter sports teams can begin their respective season until after January 1, 2021. The decision on winter sports is what a few other local schools have announced, including Bowdoin College and MIT.
With news of no fall sports being played later this year, it is likely that Ivy League football fans won’t see their favorite teams on the gridiron until next September. In addition to football, it is most likely that other fall sports such as field hockey, soccer, and volleyball won’t play games until the 2021-22 school year.
The Ivy League was the first NCAA D-I conference to cancel its basketball tournaments in March due to the coronavirus. A few days later, the Ivy League canceled the remainder of its spring sports season.
An announcement on if and when an Ivy League football season will occur either this fall or possibly next spring will be made next Wednesday, July 8, according to the league’s website.
The Ivy League posted a statement about its upcoming fall sports announcement earlier today, as well as shared the news on Twitter.
In addition to football, other fall sports that the Ancient Eight sponsors, including soccer, field hockey, and volleyball, will also find out if and when their respective seasons will take place, too.
The Ivy League, specifically its eight football programs, have been in the news this week following a Sunday report from TMG Sports that the upcoming season could be shrunk from 10 games to seven contests or possibly moved to next spring. Sunday’s report sparked additional reporting from ESPN’s Heather Dinich, who learned that the Ivy League’s “Council of Presidents has been meeting frequently via videoconference this spring” to discuss the upcoming fall sports season.
Just a short time ago, the New York Post reported that one of their sources believes it would be hard to see the Ivy League play any sports this fall due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Ivy League was the first conference to cancel its basketball tournaments in March
The eight Ivy League football teams don’t compete for spots in the College Football Playoffs or bowl berths nor hold summer workouts for its student-athletes.
Dartmouth College and Yale University shared the Ivy League crown last fall by finishing their respective seasons with identical 9-1 overall marks, including 6-1 records against league opponents.
Basketball Hoop. (PHOTO COURTESY: bobert1980 on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC)
By NoontimeSports.com | @NoontimeNation
It was announced earlier today that the Ivy League would be canceling this weekend’s men’s and women’s basketball conference tournaments, which was going to be held at Harvard University.
The league announced that both Princeton University (women’s basketball) and Yale University (men’s basketball) would represent the Ancient Eight in the upcoming March Madness Tournaments, which are scheduled to commence next week. Both teams concluded their respective campaigns last weekend as regular-season champions.
“We understand and share the disappointment with student-athletes, coaches and fans who will not be able to participate in these tournaments, “Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris said in the release. “Regrettably, the information and recommendations presented to us from public health authorities and medical professionals have convinced us that this is the most prudent decision.”
Fans that purchased tickets to this year’s tournament will be refunded, but any ticketholders that have additional questions should contact the Harvard ticket office.
The league will permit its remaining winter teams to compete in upcoming contests “in accordance with institutional policies” while implementing a limit to the number of fans that can attend future games. The Ivy League also canceled out of season practices, along with any competitions theses teams may have scheduled.
Prior to this morning’s announcement, Harvard announced they would be shifting from in-person to virtual classrooms while asking students not to return to campus at the conclusion of the institution’s Spring Recess. As noted in a letter to students, faculty, and staff, “Our goal is to have this transition complete by Monday, March 23, which is the first day of scheduled classes following Spring Recess.”
Harvard, which collected six first-place votes, edged Yale by two points – the Bulldogs earned eight first-place votes, while tallying 118 points.
Princeton University, which is projected to finish third, garnered a trio of first-place votes for 114 points, while Penn and Columbia rounded out the top five.
Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown were projected to finish sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.
Yale will certainly be a team to watch this season and should receive a boost from senior Makai Mason, who has been selected as the Ivy League preseason player of the year, per various outlets, including NBCSports.com.
Mason earned first-team All-Conference honors during his sophomore season (2015-16) – he became the fourth sophomore in program history to earn a spot on the conference’s first-team.
Both teams will commence their respective 2017-18 campaigns on Friday, November 10 with Harvard hosting MIT and Yale facing Creighton at the CBE Hall of Fame Classic.
It was a game that Harvard should have come back to Cambridge with a victory.
But Dave Archer’s Big Red had other ideas about the final outcome and walked off Schoellkopf Field with a well-deserved 17-14 upset over the Crimson.
Cornell, which had suffered through three dismal and turnover-plagued losses, committed just a single turnover while grinding out 233 yards on the ground to stun the Crimson.
Cornell’s strategy to focus on the rush paid off handsomely as the Big Red dominated time of possession (36:50 vs 23:10) which kept the Crimson offense off the field.
Chris Walker led the Cornell 1-3 (1-1 Ivy) ground attack with 93 yards on 19 carries.
Walker was joined by fellow running backs Harold Coles (68 yards) and Jack Gellatly (49 yards) in an impressive display of ground-and-pound football.
Meanwhile, Harvard’s offense sputtered, rushing for just 62 yards, while adding 162 through the air.
The loss left the highly-favored Crimson with a 2-2 record (1-1) and facing a non-league home game this week against Lafayette (2-4), in another of those games Harvard should put in the win column.
History is one Harvard’s side as they lead the series, 16-3. Harvard has won five-straight against Lafayette, and is 9-2 all-time against the Leopards in Cambridge.
The Leopards enter the contest with some momentum after last week’s come-from-behind, 14-10, win over Fordham.
The Crimson will have to deal with a passing threat in quarterback Sean O’Malley who passed for 256 passing yards and two TDs in the win over Fordham.
O’Malley has a favorite target in wide receiver Rocco Palumbo who had nine catches for 129 yards.
It will be interesting to see who Harvard will feature at quarterback as freshman Jake Smith was 8-of-14 against Cornell. Murphy had been rotating Smith and senior Joe Viviano, but Viviano did not appear in the stat sheet against Cornell.
Bob’s Prediction: It’s one of those less important non-league affairs, but the Crimson need to bounce back and gain some consistency. You can bet that the Crimson defense will be focused on stopping the Leopards ground attack. Prediction: Harvard 31, Lafayette 10
Next week: The preseason favorites, Princeton and Harvard, will get after it on Friday, Oct. 20 under the lights at Harvard Stadium (7:30 p.m. NBCSN).
Around the Ancient Eight (Notes): The Ivy League is off to its best non-conference start since 1970 with a 15-5 record in out-of-conference play in 2017.
This week the Ivy League features a pair of matchups all critical to the teams who expect to remain in the hunt for a title.
Brown 2-2 (0-1) hosts Princeton 3-1 (0-1), which can be viewed on the Ivy League Network (ILN), while former Penn head coach Al Bagnoli leads surprising Columbia 4-0 (1-0) in to a potential trap game against the Penn Quakers 2-2 (0-1) on Eleven Sports and ILN.
Columbia might be guilty of looking ahead to next week’s contest with Dartmouth.
Bagnoli’s Lions were picked to finish seventh in the preseason polls.
Yale’s dynamic running back combo of Deshawn Salter and Zane Dudek have accounted for 12 of Yale’s 14 rushing TDs this season.
Dartmouth’s quarterback, Jack Heneghan, Ivy Offensive Player of the Week, has kept things all in the Ivy family. Father Lal was an All-Ivy tight end at Penn in 1984. He helped the Quakers to three Ivy League titles in his career.
Penn senior Justin Watson ranks sixth in Ivy League history in both receptions (232) and receiving yards (3,083). He is the sixth Ivy to surpass 3,000 yards and the first since 2002, when Carl Morris (Harvard), Rob Milanese (Penn) and ChasGessner (Brown) accomplished the feat. Watson, who has caught at least one pass in 34-straight games, needs just one reception in each of his remaining six games to set a new Ivy League record for consecutive games with a catch.
(Report compiled from various Ivy League media sources).
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By Bob Whitney (@WhitneyBob)