Only six times in the last three decades has a player won Ivy League Rookie of the Year and followed it up with Player of the Year honors.
Five of the six -- including Michael Jordan and, most recently, Ugonna Onyekwe -- wore Red and Blue.
It is not that the players fail to live up to expectations, rather there is another factor that contributes to freshman year success.
The player has to get floor time, often a consequence of entering a losing program.
It is this factor that makes Dartmouth's Jonathan Ball a prime candidate for this year's award.
The 6-foot-4 Ball should get a chance to play significant minutes under new head coach Terry Dunn.
"I think Jonathan Ball ... has a chance to develop into a pretty good player in the Ivy League," Dunn said.
Ball's teammate Leon Pattman, last year's Ivy Rookie of the Year, actually attended the same high school: White Station in Memphis, Tenn.
Pattman's 2003-04 squad went 1-13 in the Ivy League last season and the year before, Rookie of the Year Lenny Collins played for 4-10 Cornell.
But that does not mean that a top team cannot get a lot of production out of a rookie.
Princeton, picked by the media to top the Ivy League standings, has an excellent prospect in 6-foot-4 guard Matt Sargeant.
Sargeant -- a first-team all-state honoree at Ocean View High School in Huntington Valley, Calif., in his junior and senior seasons -- even has opposing coaches talking.
"Coming out of high school, Matt Sargeant was a guy I thought would be pretty good," said James Jones, who coaches rival Yale.
Fellow freshman Noah Savage may see more playing time as a result of the departure of Harrison Schaen and knee surgery that will sideline senior guard Andre Logan.
First-year coach Joe Scott told The Associated Press that Savage may replace Logan in the starting lineup.
Of particular interest to Penn fans is 6-foot-9 center Ben Nwachukwu, who was highly recruited by the Quakers, but will instead don the Columbia blue.
Nwachukwu -- who averaged 14 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks per game for New Jersey Class B champion St. Augustine's Prep last season -- comes from Enugu, Nigeria.
Nwachukwu is one of six freshmen who seek to lead the Lions, led by coach Joe Jones, to the top of the Ivy League standings.
"Any of the six guys on our team could be our best freshman," Jones said.
Brown, in an effort to add size around defending Ivy League Player of the Year Jason Forte, added 6-foot-9 forward Mark McDonald, a two-time Boston Globe All-Scholastic player from Lexington, Mass.
The Bears also bolstered their frontcourt with the addition of 6-foot-8 twin brothers Eric and Kyle Nordrum from Lucasville, Ohio.
Harvard, much like Dartmouth, is in need of immediate help, having suffered through a 3-11 Ivy season last year.
The Crimson may have found it in 5-foot-10 point guard Tyler Klunick, who will likely battle for the starting spot this season.
On the other hand, Yale's top recruit Eric Flato is in New Haven, Conn., for the future.
Flato, a Californian, set the all-time scoring mark at Piedmont High School, but will face difficulty breaking into the starting backcourt of seniors Edwin Draughan and Alex Gamboa.
Cornell also went west in search of talent, landing Shawn Oliverson from Preston, Idaho. Oliverson stands 6-foot-10 and 245 pounds, and will be joined by guards Jason Canady, Khaliq Gant and Will Scott.
While some fans may expect big things of their team's rookies this year, Big Red coach Steve Donahue warns to keep expectations under control for the Class of 2008 in the upcoming season.
"I don't think there are too many teams relying on their freshmen to make big plays," he said.
