Random Ivy notes 4/9

Done with the jokes, back to reality. Here we go:

1) This year the race for Big 5 Most Outstanding Player was pretty close. In my opinion, Dionte Christmas was the best player in the City, leading the Big 5 with 19.5 points per game. Dante Cunningham had the best postseason of anyone in the Big 5. But in the end Ahmad Nivins won the a ward. In some ways this is similar to Alex Barnett winning Ivy Player of the Year. Simply put, without the output of these two players, their respective teams clearly wouldn't have been half as good as they were.

2) Despite claiming to cover Ivy sports, Ivy Gate rarely has done so over the last couple of years (only 15 posts have the "sports" tag dating back to the start of 2007). However, in the last few weeks contributor Max Wasserman has created an Ivy Sports Roundup that covers the past weekend's games. Each of the eight schools get an entry, including who they have bragging rights over. This week Penn ranked seventh (ouch) yet had bragging rights over Harvard. If nothing else, check out the hilarious video from Conan O'Brien on old timey baseball.

3) A Big 5 coach is leaving. So is an Ivy League one. Ok, so they're both assistants. First, Villanova associate head coach Patrick Chambers was introduced yesterday as Boston University's new head coach. Cornell head coach Steve Donahue was a leading candidate early on to replace Dennis Wolff, who coached the Terriers for the last 15 years, but he said he wasn't interested. In addition, there were rumors that Chambers might be a candidate to replace Glen Miller, if and when the Penn coach left the program.

Meanwhile, Harvard's Fly By Blog is reporting that Harvard assistant coach Will Wade is leaving to become an assistant coach at VCU under newly hired head coach Shaka Smart. Wade was a key recruiter under Harvard's Tommy Amaker (HT Timothy Walsh).