Waiting time for Ivy hoops

Ivy League basketball coaches are forced to wait patiently while recruits decide which school to attend. Tradition. When Tevye bellowed the first words of this Fiddler on the Roof classic, he may as well have been referring to Ivy League basketball. Brown will finish near the cellar. Ed Rendell will be in his seat at the Palestra. No one at Cornell will show up to a game. And every April, during the week admissions letters are mailed, Ivy League Moratorium will keep coaches off the phone. All of the Ivy League schools deal with Moratorium. But all the schools bring different recruiting tools to the table. Either way, for the Ancient Eight, the recruiting process moves form a painstaking year long search for the right players, and winds down into a two week period of silence and wonder. Moratorium The ages-old Ivy Moratorium rule prohibits league coaches from calling recruits between Monday and Friday during the week in which admissions letters are mailed. "I don't question the rule, I don't fight it," Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher (85-97 in seven years as Big Green head coach) said. "I've been here 14 years and have learned to work within the parameters that govern us. I'm not a rebellious guy at all. "It's a good idea that the players don't get harassed, that they pick a school for the reasons they choose and are not bothered right when the acceptances come." Columbia coach Armond Hill, an eight-year NBA veteran, echoed Faucher's beliefs, stating that the rule has little effect on the way he approaches recruiting. "I really don't pay attention to Moratorium," Hill, whose ballclubs have compiled a 24-54 record in three seasons, said. "I think if you're talking to kids all year, once a week, stuff like that, then that's good enough." Hill felt that the Moratorium is not a problem, as most athletes have finalized their decisions by the time admissions letters are mailed. "You've done everything, you've been talking to the kids if not before August of that year, then you've been talking to him all school year," Hill said. "This gives them a chance to think about other opportunities they'll have before they commit." On the other, more competitive, side of the Ivy League, Penn coach Fran Dunphy, whose squads recorded three straight undefeated seasons from 1992-95, also expressed the feeling that Moratorium can have benefits in terms of giving the recruits breathing space. "The rule makes it as benign a process as possible for the players," Dunphy said. "That way you're not calling these guys and bugging them and finding out what they want to do. "We know what the rule is and what the intention of the rule is, we understand it, so we just work around it. You're allowed to make a once-a-week phone call after Ivy Moratorium is over, so it doesn't change things drastically for us." Dunphy also said that in his tenure at Penn, the Quakers have never lost a recruit to a non-Ivy Division I school while he and other Ivy coaches have been frozen in Moratorium. This year's class At Penn, however, one prized recruit has yet to make a decision this year. Chris Krug, a senior at Germantown Academy and brother of former Quakers All-Ivy selection Tim Krug, is deciding not between Penn and a non-Ivy scholarship program but between Penn and Princeton. Dunphy and Princeton coach Bill Carmody each have waited patiently during Ivy Moratorium and beyond for Krug, who is expected to publicly announce his decision this week. Though Ivy restrictions prohibit coaches from discussing specific recruits before they save their respective spots in the freshman class, Dunphy offered one comment on the Chris Krug situation. "A great article to write would be for next fall, I hope, to explain in retrospect 'why did Chris Krug choose to come to Penn?'" Dunphy said. Princeton coach Bill Carmody was out of town last weekend and unavailable for comment on Krug's status. With or without Krug, Dunphy was able to secure at least one recruit away from Princeton through early decision – 6'7", 200-lb. swingman Dan Solomito of St. Andrew's School in Boca Raton, Fla. Solomito, who turned down a scholarship offer from William & Mary, expounded upon the disadvantages Ivy League coaches face when recruiting. "Lack of scholarships is one less recruiting tool for the Ivy Leagues that other Division I coaches have," Solomito said. "That, and the letter of intent. I committed to Penn [when I applied early] in November but no real, official statement was written like at another Division I school." However, Solomito cited Ivy League academics as the biggest factor in his decision making process. After warnings from the William & Mary coach that his scholarship would be granted to another player if he did not commit, Solomito felt uneasy about the prospects of being left floating should he not have been granted admission to Penn. These two head-to-head battles between Princeton and Penn have had little affect on the recruiting years of other schools around the league. Hill, for one, feels the competition between Ivy League teams during the Moratorium period is mostly confined to the likes of Princeton and Penn. The rest of the Ivy League Nevertheless, Dartmouth's Faucher added that the Big Green have entered Moratorium in the past vying for a recruit with the likes of Penn. "The situation varies," Faucher said. "We've gone against every Ivy League school at one time or another [in competition for a recruit]." Faucher also added that if his team made a habit of chasing after the same players as the top Ivy programs, the Big Green would not fare well. Thus, Faucher sets his sights on other players. "Basically, we're not a real hard sell. We're a special school in a beautiful place," Faucher said. "But none of us could field programs if we all accepted guys who didn't plan on coming. If my top guys all ended up going to Penn, we would not have much of a program." Hill, who did taste the fruits of Ivy success while serving as an assistant coach under Pete Carril at Princeton from 1991-95, said teams like his Lions rarely cross paths with Penn and Princeton when it comes to recruiting. "Us little guys, we don't stand a chance. Most kids, if they're basketball players, they want to go to the Big Dance," Hill, the 1976 Ivy Player of the Year, said. "Have you checked the records in the last 36 years? If a young kid is good enough to get into the Ivy League and he is a basketball player, it really comes down to one of two tough choices -- Penn or Princeton." · For Dunphy, the safest way to ensure players make the Penn choice is to have them apply early decision. While this might seem like an over-simplified solution in face of equally strong recruiting pulls from Princeton, Dunphy has had significant success with early-decision recruits in recent years. "I would hope that luck is not a part of getting an athlete early," Dunphy said. "I would hope that a good decision is very much a part of it. If a young man can come to that decision early, sure it helps us. Michael Jordan, Geoff Owens and Matt Langel all decided to come early and that was great." Solomito made his decision to come to Penn after a recruiting visit early in the '97-'98 season, the very weekend in which Owens went down for the year with hypertension. This week, Penn received positive news when the Office of Risk Management cleared Owens to return to the court. The wait for the Ivy League basketball fans in the spring is similarly a tradition. Will the good news double, and can Owens and Krug play in the same front court? Everyone will know soon. Quakers fans breathed sighs of relief regarding Owens but all they can do is keep their collective fingers crossed as they await the upcoming decision of Germantown Academy's Krug.

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