OT: Columbia Basketball...

jbeaber1998 · March 28, 2003, 12:12:04 PM

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2003/0328/1530579.html

Well, this could make Penn and Princeton's domination interesting...

ugarte · March 28, 2003, 02:56:20 PM

Prediction: Even if Kareem gets the job, Columbia's suckitude will overwhelm Kareem's history of winning.

Adam · March 28, 2003, 03:43:56 PM

Princeton has John Thompson's son (read: actually has coaching in the blood) and it didn't get them all that far this season.

In Thompson's case though, it might be an example of "being the guy who follows the legend."

Kareem would certainly have no such legend to follow and probably still has a better jump hook than the entire Columbia squad.

kingpin248 · March 28, 2003, 03:59:25 PM

Bill Carmody doesn't strike me as all that legendary. (It was Carmody who succeeded Pete Carril in 1996.)

I tend to agree with BRA - Columbia will still suck.

And hopefully Kareem will have the good sense to avoid making derogatory comments to members of opposing pep bands. :-D

Post Edited (03-28-03 16:01)

Lowell '99 · March 28, 2003, 04:20:18 PM

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Abdul-Jabbar,+Kareem

Endless taunting material.

Adam · March 28, 2003, 04:35:18 PM

I stand corrected, Matt. In that case, Thompson is in a sweet spot. It's good to be the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the legend.

Al DeFlorio · April 24, 2003, 05:36:58 PM

The suspense is over. Kareem lost out to...Joe Jones. ::uhoh::

gtsully · April 25, 2003, 10:37:00 AM

Too bad - as a Celtics fan, that just would have given me another reason to hate Kareem...:-P

Greg Berge · April 25, 2003, 06:27:03 PM

Wasn't the coach of that hoops team whose players all quit this season an ex-Cornell coach?

I think I've asked this before but, why are we so awful in basketball? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd rather watch paint dry than squeakball, but sheesh, 1 Ivy title in 40 years?!

rhovorka · April 25, 2003, 07:01:20 PM

QuoteGreg wrote:

Wasn't the coach of that hoops team whose players all quit this season an ex-Cornell coach?

I think I've asked this before but, why are we so awful in basketball? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd rather watch paint dry than squeakball, but sheesh, 1 Ivy title in 40 years?!

Yes. Jan Van Breda Kolff was basketball coach at Cornell my freshman and sophomore years. He was well liked and respected by fans and players. He left for Vanderbilt and Ivy League Rookie of the Year Pax Whitehead followed him there. His replacement, Al Walker (current coach at Binghamton) was...let's say less liked. Many recruits quit the team, Syracuse refused to put us on their schedule, and Walker had a trend of sticking his foot down his gullet to the media. I'd say the program took a big step backwards.

Trivia: VBK had a brief NBA career, and he shared a rookie card with Magic Johnson.

Why are we so bad in basketball? Why is Princeton so bad in hockey? Or Columbia in football? Ivy Squeakball has been for the most part a 2-team playground. Cornell is the last Ivy representative in the NCAA tournament whose name did not start with the letter "P". In 1988. Fifteen years and counting.

Edit: There have been exactly 5 Non- Penn/Princeton champions since 1960:
1962: Yale
1963: Yale, shared with Princeton
1968: Columbia, shared with Princeton
1986: Brown
1988: Cornell
2002: Yale, who shared the title with *drumroll* Penn and Princeton. Penn won the 3-team playoff to earn the Ivy NCAA auto-bid.

http://ivyleaguesports.com/sports/ivy-champs.asp?intSID=6

Post Edited (04-25-03 19:14)

Greg Berge · April 25, 2003, 11:34:35 PM

So basically Penn and Princeton are the only Ivies that try. Got it.

ugarte · April 26, 2003, 02:43:51 AM

QuoteRich Hovorka '96 wrote:

Trivia: VBK had a brief NBA career, and he shared a rookie card with Magic Johnson.

More trivia: VBK's father, Butch VBK, was a coaching legend. Among other coaching gigs (including several in the NBA), Butch coached Bill Bradley's Princeton team to the Final Four.

Post Edited (04-26-03 02:44)

Greg Berge · April 26, 2003, 04:29:12 PM

Wasn't there a Norm VBK too?

ugarte · April 27, 2003, 01:11:52 AM

QuoteGreg wrote:

Wasn't there a Norm VBK too?

I don't think so. Are you thinking of Norm Van Brocklin?

CUlater · April 28, 2003, 10:19:59 AM

He's probably thinking of Norm Van Lier.

Jan VBK was a pretty good player with the Nets.

And other schools within the Ivies have had some pretty good teams, despite not winning the league title.

Penn and Princeton's success seems partly a case of success feeding on itself. If you are a good enough student to attend an Ivy school, but not a good enough player to play at Michigan, Stanford, Duke etc., you have the best shot for on-court success at Penn or Princeton (depending on which style of play you prefer). Two problems for the other Ivies are that the pool of players in that category seems relatively small and it seems that players on the cusp tend to reach for the non-Ivy school first and only in rare cases decide to transfer to an Ivy school after a lack of success at the first choice (plus, unlike in hockey, there are so many other options for playing time and schooling). Transfer examples include Matt Maloney of Penn (who was originally at Vanderbilt) and some big man at Dartmouth, who was originally at Duke (IIRC).