Expanding the NCAA tournament (plus a Princeton factoid)

I don't want to cut off the good discussion we're having about Cornell's Top 25 spot.  However, I've seen in a few places, including Soft Pretzel Logic, Yahoo and this ESPN video, that it appears discussions are moving forward to expand the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament to 68 or even 96 teams.

The expansion won't occur until the NCAA manages to opt out of its current TV deal with CBS -- who has had the broadcasting rights since 1982 -- and renegotiate a new one. But one source claims expansion is "a done deal" and could happen as soon as 2010-11. If the tournament were to expand to 96 teams, then a cable network would broadcast the first round(s) in addition to a network broadcaster covering the latter rounds.

Expanding to 68 teams would create a play-in game for all four regions, instead of just the one play-in game that currently exists. Personally, I wouldn't have any strong objections to this format. I've always thought that the one seed that played the play-in winner had an inherent advantage since the 16 seed has just three days to prepare. Then again, No. 1 seeds have never lost in the first round, so it's not exactly a huge advantage. In the end, the net effect would probably just be three more at large bids to power conference teams.

On the other hand, expanding to 96 teams seems a bit excessive. Frankly, it would cheapen the value of making the NCAA Tournament. Sure, 96 out of 347 Division I teams is still a small percentage. But let's be honest: those 32 extra at large bids are more than likely going to go to power conference teams that had middling overall records but a strong SOS, than decent mid-majors who have better overall records but subpar strength of schedules and RPI.

However, I could see some positives with 96 teams. They could create a rule that any small conference team that clinches the regular season title would be guaranteed a berth to the big dance. Right now these teams are already guaranteed an NIT bid, but I suspect the NIT will be basically worthless if the NCAAs are expanded to 96.  In addition, theoretically another round of single-elimination basketball sounds exciting. I just fear it would make subsequent upsets rarer.

So in the end, what exactly would the effect of expansion be on the Ivy League and Penn? If expansion just ups the field by three, the only impact would be that Ivy teams would get worse seeds, especially in years when there isn't a dominant team like this year's Cornell squad. However, if 32 teams are added, I could see a potential year like this one-- or at least before Cornell throttled Harvard -- in which two Ivy teams are in legitimate contention to make the tournament. And if somehow the NIT does survive, then I definitely could see an Ivy team make that with more frequency than they do now.

What do you guys think about NCAA expansion and its effect on the Ancient Eight.

----

Here's the stat of the week for you: According to one Basketball-U poster, since 1990-91 Princeton has won the Ivy League every time it swept the Brown/Yale roadtrip, while every other year it's lost at least one of those games. Extending it back to 1980-81, the pattern holds for 11 out of 12 titles.

This past weekend Princeton swept those two.

Of course, that doesn't indicate they'll somehow beat Cornell once, let alone twice, and win the League. But as a history major, I'm certainly intrigued by interesting trends.

(HT Noah Becker)

Cornell in Top 25

They've been knocking on the door for a while, but the Cornell men's basketball team finally cracked the Top 25, garnering just one more vote than Ole Miss in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll. It's the first time in 59 years that the Big Red have been among the top 25 teams in the nation, dating back to Jan. 3, 1951.

That also makes them the first ranked Ivy team to crack the top 25 since Princeton did it at the end of the 1997-98 season. That squad finished No. 8 in the year-end AP poll and No. 16 in the final USA Today poll.

The Big Red are fresh off two dominating performances to open Ivy play. They trumped Dartmouth by 34 and then topped that by taking down Harvard (seemingly their closest rival in-conference) by a whopping 36 points.

In my opinion, this news all but seals the fact that Cornell as a contender is here to stay. They may be losing three superstars at the end of the year, but a Top 25 ranking (even in February) is a tough recruiting tool to combat. And that's before we even factor what this national attention could do to their ranking in the NCAA Tournament. It looks like Penn's resurgence in the Ivies won't be as easy as waiting for Cornell's "Big Three" to graduate.

M. Hoops at Brown live blog

Hey all,

I'm here at the Pizzitola center for Penn's matchup with Brown in their second game of the young Ivy season. They'll be looking to bounce back from a loss to Yale last night. Follow along with me for all the action.

M. Hoops at Brown, 1/30/10

More national coverage and updated lines

So far this week, we've seen a book devoted to Ivy hoops and a Wall Street Journal piece saying that the Harvard-Cornell game (tonight, 7 p.m. ET, Ithaca, N.Y.) may be “[t]he game of the year in college basketball.”

Well, now Sports Illustrated jumps into the fray with a feature on Harvard basketball. The story focuses on coach Tommy Amaker and star guard Jeremy Lin, who may be headed for the NBA. SI also had an interesting table with the story, replicated below:

*   *   *

Zach Klitzman gave his picks for yesterday's games. All the favorites cruised, and Klitzman didn't do too badly, going 2-1.  But his line-setting prognostication skills weren't quite as good; here are the previously unavailable spreads for today's action:

Harvard at Cornell -8

Princeton -2 at Yale

Dartmouth at Columbia -9

Penn at Brown -6

Penn @ Yale Live Blog

Hey everyone, it's Lauren Plotnick and you will be following along live with me as I cover the Penn's Ivy Opener at Yale.

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Ivy League weekend picks Week 1

As Penn enters the double-round robin Ivy Season this weekend, I'll write some previews of the other Ivy games coming up. (And on Monday I'll to bring back the "What the other side is saying" feature I did for some of the football games in the fall.) But to make these posts more exciting, I'll pick the games using the spread. Because let's face it, without a little (hypothetical) gambling, who really cares about Columbia versus Dartmouth?

So let's get started after the jump

Friday

Dartmouth (4-12, 0-2 Ivy) at Cornell (16-3, 2-0) (-25.5). Damn that's a big line. Then again, Dartmouth currently has no player averaging over 8.2 points a game, while Cornell has four such players. In fact, Cornell's starting five averages only about five points fewer than the entire Big Green roster. The Big Red is also 12-3 against the spread, including 4-0 when they're double digit favorites (that include two wins over Columbia). Dartmouth hasn't played in many games with a spread, but are 2-4 (1-1 Ivy) ATS.

Pick: Unless Cornell looks past the Big Green to the big matchup with Harvard tomorrow-- which certainly is a possibility -- I think Cornell will cover. (Either way, they're not losing outright).

Princeton (9-5, 0-0) (-5) at Brown (7-12, 1-1). This is the only Friday game in which the road team is the favorite. Brown has made vast strides of improvement this year after going 3-13 in the Ivy League last year. But Princeton has also improved, going a solid 9-5 in non-conference play. I think a four-point spread is a really good line, though Princeton is 2-0 when favored, beating Marist and Manhattan (guess they don't like Catholics).

Pick: One of Brown's three Ivy wins last year was home against Princeton and I definitely could see them winning again tonight. But I think it's going to be one of those tight games throughout that eventual ends up a 7-10 point margin. So I'm going with Princeton.

Harvard (13-3, 2-0) (-8.5) at Columbia (6-10, 0-2). Harvard has beaten teams from 10 different conferences this year. This stat has nothing to do with the spread, but I find it really cool. (Compare that to Penn, who even if they had gone undefeated would only have beaten teams from nine conferences).  Anyway, Harvard's 6-3 ATS, while Columbia is just 2-2 (both losses to Cornell). The line of this game probably would be higher if Harvard hadn't struggled against Dartmouth last Saturday, winning just by four (they were 15-point favorites).

Pick: Harvard's going to win this game. But it's going to be closer than nine. Jeremy Lin will score his points, but with forward Pat Magnarelli out, Columbia's weakness inside might not be as much of a fatal flaw. Also, I think Harvard, more so than Cornell, could fall into the trap of overlooking tonight's opponent.

(Note, like Fleg, I'm not going to bet on games the team I cover plays, but Penn is eight-point underdogs to Yale.)

Saturday (so turns out there's no lines for tomorrow yet; so you'll have to check tomorrow morning for the actual lines).

Harvard at Cornell. Don't know if this is really the game of the year in ALL of college basketball, but it certainly is the game of the year for Ivy League (until the rematch in Boston at least).  In case you forgot about them, Stephen Steinlight over at CBB has a recap on the alleged recruiting violations that Harvard was cleared of by the Ivy League.  Yet I don't think any "Bunch of cheaters clap-clap clap-clap-clap" cheers will phase the Crimson.

Pick: My guess is the line is small and in Cornell's favor. Let's say 2.5. This is going to be a really close game I think, but in the end I believe Cornell will prevail (though they definitely could lose ATS).

Princeton at Yale. Depending on tonight's games, Princeton probably will be favored by like 7. Let's call this one an upset special and give it to Yale to at least cover.

Dartmouth at Columbia. Line maybe at -10 for Columbia (could be higher if they beat Harvard). Again, Dartmouth is woeful on offense, so I'll give the points and take the Lions.

(Penn would probably be a eight-point underdog if they lose a close game to Yale.)

Your thoughts/picks in the comments (but a warning: I'm going to games with the band so I won't be able to respond until Sunday morning).

Ivy hoops by the book

Nobody ever accused us at The Buzz of being avid book readers, so I apologize that we're a little late with this.

But Washington Post reporter Kathy Orton has written what she calls "the first book inside Ivy League basketball." To get material for Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League -- which was released on Sept. 11, 2009 -- Orton spent the 2005-06 season following Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and, yes, Penn.

Of course, a lot was different back then. Fran Dunphy was still the coach, and the Quakers finished 20-9 (12-2 Ivy) en route to the NCAA Tournament. Ibrahim Jaaber was the conference Player of the Year.

Still, in additional to chronicling that season, the book provides context on the history of Ivy League hoops. We'll try to get our hands on a copy and relay what we find, but in the meantime, here's an excerpt from the book and a Q&A with the New York Times' Quad Blog.

The most relevant part of the Q&A is after the jump.

Q.

Penn and Princeton have struggled in recent years. Are they likely to regain their dominance over the league?

A.

Since Cornell won back-to-back titles and is a strong contender for its third consecutive championship this season, many believe the Penn-Princeton dominance has ended. I’m not so sure. While I’m thrilled to see teams other than the Quakers and the Tigers win the league, I’m not ready to write off either team. Penn and Princeton have strong traditions of success and too many inherent advantages that make it unlikely that they will stay down for long.

Because coaching changes seem to adversely affect Ivy teams, more so than other Division I teams, I believe the recent struggles of Penn and Princeton can be attributed to their instability at that position. Princeton was coached by Pete Carril for 29 years. Fran Dunphy led Penn for 17 seasons. I think given time both of these programs will regain their footing atop the league.

WSJ long on Ivy hyperbole

Personally, I think The Wall Street Journal's rhetoric is a bit over the top on this one. But an article in Wednesday's paper says that the Ivy League may just have "[t]he game of the year in college basketball."

The essence:

Saturday's game between Harvard (13-3) and Cornell (16-3)—and the scheduled rematch on Feb. 19 at Harvard—will bring a sense of urgency that this sport is unaccustomed to, at least before March. For the first time—arguably ever—the Ivy League has two legitimate NCAA Tournament-caliber teams.

But given the conference's diminished standing, it's all but certain that only one of them—the eventual Ivy champion—will get there.

Miller vs. Allen, by the Numbers

Jerome Allen has now coached as many games this season (7) as Glen Miller did before he was fired. So I figure now is as good a time as any to compare the performance of each coach this season.

Seeing as I am a statistics minor, I figure I'll try and take care of this statistically. I looked at the team's performance in a number of statistical areas, and performed a t-test to determine if there was any significance between the means. If there were (and Allen's team was higher in that metric), then that may indicate better play by the team since Allen has taken over.

DISCLAIMER: This is by no means statistically accurate for two major reasons. First of all, there are not enough data points to reasonably assume normality in the data, a key assumption in performing this test. Furthermore, a number of factors make the two parts of the season incomparable, including injuries, strength of schedule, and factors such as momentum in certain areas.

That being said, I still think this is a fun exercise, and one I decided to undertake anyways. Again, if any of my stat professors happen to be reading this, please don't fail me.

The numbers for each category are the team's averages/percentages over the games played under each head coach. Significance tested at the 5% level (If yes, then there is a statistically significant difference between the two numbers).

Winning Percentage Miller: 0% (0/7) Allen: 14.28% (1/7) Significant? Not at All

Points for Penn Miller: 66.43 Allen: 59.29 Significant? Nope

Points Against Penn Miller: 79.86 Allen: 80.29 Significant? Not even a little bit

Margin of Victory Miller: -13.43 Allen: -21 Significant? No

Free Throw Shooting Miller: 66.13% Allen: 79.98% Significant? Very much so

Rebounding Margin Miller: -3.29 Allen: -3.43 Significant? Nope, basically the same

Points by Zack Rosen Miller: 14.86 Allen: 18.43 Significant? No

Field Goal Percentage Miller: 39.44% Allen: 38.26% Significant? Nope

3-pointers as a Percentage of Total Field Goal Attempts Miller: 40.81% Allen: 43.75% Significant? Nope

3-Point FG Percentage Miller: 27.70% Allen: 30.68% Significant? No

Turnovers Miller: 15 Allen: 17.57 Significant? Nope

Conclusions: Well, as I said before, no true statistical conclusions can be derived from this analysis. The sample size is far too small and the variables are being acted on by a number of different, unaccounted-for factors. But the averages are still nice to look at.

And the one area in which the team has shown a statistically significant improvement? Free-throw shooting. That would seem to me to be one of the fastest changes to implement, but it may also have to do with momentum and confidence built up from making previous attempts.

Take a look, see if you can read anything into the numbers that I couldn't, and let me know if there is any other numbers I should look at. Look forward to seeing your comments.

Penn vs. St. Joe's Live Blog

Hi this is Ari Seifter here live at the Palestra as the Penn men's basketball team (1-12, 0-3 Big 5) has its last chance for a Big 5 victory against Saint Joseph's (7-11, 0-1 Big 5). The Hawks are 0-7 on the road but have a good chance to get that first road victory against a depleted Penn squad. Click below to access the live blog.

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National Ivy TV deal?

Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris tells Bloomberg News that she would like multiyear national TV deals to broadcast the conference's football and basketball games -- plus, perhaps, lacrosse and soccer.

You may recall that the Ivy League had a deal with Versus for 2008, only to see the deal collapse for 2009 when sponsorship dollars dried up in this economic climate.

Harris would not tell Bloomberg which networks might be interested, or what type of revenues the league  might expect. (In the '08 deal with Versus, the league and the network did not exchange money; the Ivies just wanted the exposure). She also did not think a deal could be in place for the 2010 football season.

For his part, Athletic Director Steve Bilsky seemed lukewarm on the idea, referencing Penn's strong ties with Comcast. The University's deal with the regional sports network runs through 2010-11, with mutual options to renew thereafter.

“We have a good local TV package,” Bilsky told Bloomberg. “Selfishly, we wouldn’t give that up unless we felt there was a very legitimate alternative, not something we have for a year and it dissipates.

“The challenge is to come up with something that is sustainable enough and positive enough that we’d be willing to give away our good games."

So it seems as if Harris has a tough road ahead. Considering that the Ivy League couldn't get a football deal for '09 --and considering the dismal ratings that the football games on Versus received -- finding someone interested in soccer and lacrosse seems like a long shot, even bundled with the top two sports.  Then, she'll also have to convince the member institutions that its worth their while. And as we know, not all Ivy schools enter this discussion on the same footing.

MVP Zack Rosen

After witnessing another Penn loss despite another great effort by sophomore guard Zack Rosen, I was thinking about just how much worse (if that's even possible) this Penn team would be without the red-haired floor general.

In fact, you could make the case that no player in the Ivies is more valuable to his team than Rosen. For example, take away Ryan Wittman and Cornell would still be good. But take away Zack Rosen ... and Penn would still be bad? Well OK obviously it's not like Zack Rosen himself wins games for Penn. However, looking at the top scorers for each Ivy team, Rosen has scored the highest percentage of his team's points (this is similar to baseball's Value Over Replacment Player stat):

Ryan Wittman (Cornell): 18.6/75.9=24.5% Alex Zampier (Yale): 18.4/68.4=26.9% Noruwa Agho (Columbia): 17.4/64.3=27.1% Zack Rosen (Penn): 17.3/62.8=27.5% Jeremy Lin (Harvard): 17.0/77.2=22.0% Douglas Davis (Princeton): 13.4/57.9=23.1% David Rufful (Dartmouth): 8.5/55.4=15.3% (not a typo; Dartmouth doesn't have any scoring more than 8.5 points per game)

So in short Zack Rosen is this year's Alex Barnett. However, unlike last year's senior at Dartmouth, there's very little chance he'd win Ivy League Player of the Year since it's not strictly a Most Valuable Player award. As for POY, I'd say it's 60-40 Wittman or Lin, depending on whether Cornell or Harvard win the Ivy title.

I realize the conclusion that Zack Rosen is critical to Penn isn't groundbreaking at all. But it's interesting to quantify the impact he's had on the team. Feel free to leave your thoughts about Rosen's skills in the comments.

Men's Hoops vs. La Salle

Hello and welcome to the historic Palestra for another exciting Big 5 matchup between the Penn Quakers (1-11) and the La Salle Explorers (9-8). This is Eli Cohen bringing you live coverage of all the action as newly appointed Quakers head coach Jerome Allen looks for just his second win at the helm of the Red and Blue. Lets get to the action...

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Cornell scales back on athletic aid

Over the past couple of years, we have written about how the Ivy League's changing financial aid landscape might impact athletic competitiveness.

Indeed, Penn President Amy Gutmann said last year that the greatest challenge facing Robin Harris, who became Ivy chairwoman on July 1, would be "maintaining and promoting the Ivy concept of the scholar-athlete."

So this story from yesterday's Cornell Daily Sun struck us as especially interesting:

After coming under scrutiny by Ivy League officials earlier this month, Cornell has retreated from parts of an initiative launched in November 2008 that gave more lucrative financial aid awards to athletes, among other groups of students that the University deemed "enrollment priorities."

While the initiative was aimed at aggressively recruiting students of academic excellence, diversity and athleticism, the Ivy League saw the inclusion of athletes in the program as a violation of the league’s ban on athletic scholarships.

(via IvyGate)

Dougherty is in

As Zach wrote earlier today, Fran Dougherty, star center of Archbishop Wood basketball, announced his college decision today at 1:30 p.m. We weren't able to get details from the press conference, but a source has confirmed to me that Dougherty has chosen Penn. I'm told the Philadelphia Daily News will have more details shortly, and we'll provide them as well as they become available.

[Updated 2:29 p.m.] The Ivybball twitter has also confirmed that Dougherty announced he is joining the Quakers.

[Updated 2:45 p.m.] And now the Daily News has it up and confirmed as well.

From the little I've gathered, Dougherty is dubbed as a very tough player with good skills, but he's not the most athletic guy ever. At 6-8, 225, he's got solid size for an Ivy big man, which the Quakers need desperately. I'm unsure but curious how much Jerome Allen had to do with this. I know he's been active on the recruiting circuit, but there's no telling how much of an impact he's had over assistant coaches John Gallagher and Mike Martin. Regardless, this is more good news for Penn.

[Updated 4:33 p.m.]  Further reporting has revealed that Dougherty has actually been decided on Penn for some time now. He was accepted weeks ago, presumably in the early decision pool, and those close to the situation have known he was coming to Penn. Another important detail is that he played a great game against Roman Catholic High School earlier this season, scoring 22 points, grabbing 14 rebounds and notching four blocks. Roman is one of the best teams in Philadelphia and even up there in terms of national prominence. They've produced a number of NBA players including Marc Jackson, Rasual Butler and Eddie Griffin. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean anything for Dougherty, but it's certainly a good sign. Even more impressively, he played that game with a heavily bandaged foot that was later revealed to have a stress fracture.

Football recruit in; basketball one deciding

Philly.com is reporting that St. Joseph's Prep senior Sean McGinn will attend Penn in the fall. He's 6-foot-4, 255 pounds and started at defensive end as a junior before also playing offensive tackle this past year.

He was also looking at Brown, but loved Penn from the beginning.

"When you combine the good academics and football with the fact that Penn's so close to home, it just makes sense," he said. "Growing up, going to games at Franklin Field and the Palestra, I always had a good feel for Penn. And during this process I've only heard good things."

Of course, winning the Ivy League championship can't hurt.

In addition to gridiron news, the article also mentions that Fran Dougherty, a 6-8 center on Archbishop Wood's basketball team, will announce his college decision today at 1:30. (However, I don't think it'll be televised like those press conferences top-level football recruits have on ESPNU.)

Despite the recent troubles of the Penn program, the Quakers are believed to be the favorite with Princeton, Lafayette and New Hampshire in the mix. Then again, he should fit right into this Penn team: he's currently sidelined with a stress fracture in his foot.

(HT Tannenwald)

Could Penn Take It To The Beach?

After a vote at the 2010 NCAA convention, it's possible that Penn could expand its recent volleyball domination to the Jersey Shore.

One of the particularly contentious issues going into last week's convention was a movement by many schools to strike "sand volleyball" (also known as beach volleyball to many) from a list of emerging women's sports that would have fasttracked the sport to Division I play.

The vote on this failed, and sand volleyball will be added to the list of emerging sports for women in August 2011. This means mixed things for Penn.

Given our location, I don't see Penn adding this to their list of sports any time soon. First and foremost, our location makes it pretty difficult. If fall weather weren't bad enough, the team would be facing a lot of travel time.

Not only that, but the school would need to add a men's sport as well (Ivy schools need to offer an equal number of men's and woman's teams), and that's a lot of hassle for some fun in the sun.

The second issue is recruitment. A few of Penn's players used to play on the beach, and I can't help but wonder if they would have chosen to remain there given the opportunity. While it will likely be a few years before the sport really takes off (women's bowling was added in 2004 but has yet to hit the Ivy League), in the long run, this could effect Penn's ability to get the talent it needs to continue this year's success.

PENN vs. Temple

Hi, Penn basketball fans! This is Brian Kotloff covering the Penn vs. Temple basketball game live at the Palestra. It's Jerome Allen's home debut as head coach for the Quakers, and he's pitted against former Penn coach Fran Dunphy. Follow along with me live.

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More from Allen, Dunphy and recruits

In an exciting event for me as an aspiring journalist, the New York Times used some quotes from my preview of tonight's Penn-Temple matchup in a post about the game on their college sports blog. Given the apparent popularity of some of the comments these guys made, I figured I'd share some other worthwhile items from my interviews that weren't in the story. Also after the jump, an update on two of Penn's recruits.

Quotes from Fran Dunphy that didn't make it into my story:

On whether he has proactively mentored Allen since he became Penn head coach: No. “We’re good friends and whatever help I can be he knows that I’ll be there for him. I think Jerome is a tremendous person, he was a great player. He absolutely has a plan and a style and an attack that he will be using, so he doesn’t need my help. I think he needs my support and my friendship but after that he’ll be great absolutely on his own. He’ll figure everything out that he needs to do.” He added that they still talk all the time, about once a month since Allen got back from playing professionally in Italy, and as much as once a week since he started working at Penn.

On the strengths he thinks Allen will bring as a coach: “He was as good a competitor as I’ve ever coached. He obviously was a talented guy but more than that was a very competitive guy, and I think that’s the biggest thing that he brings to the table in terms of the basketball part. And then all the off-the-court that we are asked to do, Jerome is terrific in that as well. I think politically he’s very astute, very aware of all of his surroundings and all the things he has to do. Whether it’s alumni, media, community service, whatever it happens to be, he has a really great feel for all of those things.”

On whether he is sad that Penn has struggled so much this season: “Every coach, every university, every program has gone through some difficult times on occasion, and this is just one of those times. I don’t think it will be long before Penn basketball returns to its excellence.”

Quotes from Jerome Allen that didn't make it into my story:

On his relationship with Fran Dunphy as a player: "He was a number of things. He was a disciplinarian, a father, a mentor, a coach, a friend. He taught me how to be a man in terms of treating the people the right way, doing the right things, covering all the details, and just letting people know that you care and letting people know that when people do things do for you, make sure people know that you appreciate it. I pride myself on the fact that I haven’t played for him in almost 15 years and over the past 15 years we’ve spoken on the telephone at least once a month. He’s just an awesome human being and an unbelievable basketball coach. If my son could be half the man that Fran Dunphy is, he’s gonna be fine. I just owe him so much. I walked in here [the Palestra] and I didn’t always get it. But he made sure he stayed on top of us. He said this is a game, but it’s bigger than basketball, and I think that’s one of the reasons why he’s been so successful, because he genuinely cares about people. A lot of people talk about Fran Dunphy, what a nice guy is, he’s so respectful and well-mannered, but he’s also an unbelievable coach, and you put those two in the mix together, being a great human being and excelling at your profession, you’re gonna be loved by so many."

On what he's doing as a coach that he learned from Dunphy: After lumping Dunphy in with his high school coach at Episcopal Academy (I didn't catch the name) along with Larry Brown back when he coached the Indiana Pacers, Allen said: “Between those three alone, if you can’t learn aynthing about the process of building programs and doing things the right way, then you’ll never learn anything at all. The biggest thing with coach Dunph was that he left no stones unturned. He’s a stickler for details. He always used to say ‘Pay attention to the little things. Act like you’ve been there before.’ Someone was asking me about my first win against UMBC, if i was smiling, if i was happy, if i was jumping up and down. One of the things I learned from him was that when you have success, expect it, because you’ve worked hard to produce results. You never really want to show your true emotions in your face. We walked across the floor as a staff and I don't want to say I looked like I was . One of the things he did was always respect the opponent and carry yourself a certain way.”

It's also worth noting that I really appreciated Coach Allen allowing me stay and watch practice after our interview. I've always valued that experience and how it can help my reporting and writing. I used to do it when I covered volleyball, and I always tried to do so during Glen Miller's tenure, but he never let me. He had his reasons, and I don't hold them against him, but I wanted to publicly state my appreciation for Allen's openness.

And now, a few items on the M. Hoops recruits:

Carson Sullivan Leaves Team

Midway through his first season with the Quakers, freshman guard Carson Sullivan has left the men's basketball team, as you can read about in today's DP.

I gave Carson a call, and he was kind enough to talk to me about the reason for his decision to transfer.

It's pretty apparent to me that the decision was definitely motivated by personal reasons. It was clear to me that he wants to be closer to his Charlotte home.

"I think it’s a personal decision, I wanted to be closer to home, I just wanted to find a better situation for me," he said. "It had nothing to do with the coaching staff or anything like that. I wanted to be closer to home was the main thing."

That was also clear from the schools he listed as possible destinations. While he's still gauging interest, he listed Elon, UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Asheville, and Furman as potential destinations. All four are located in the Carolinas.

But the decision was basketball-related as well.

Sullivan only played 34 minutes in six games thus far this season, and it's become pretty clear that he wasn't going to become part of interim head coach Jerome Allen's primary rotation. Thus, he wasn't getting much playing time and may want to be somewhere he can play meaningful minutes. He was pretty clear that he wasn't unhappy with the program as it stands, but hoped he could have gotten more playing time. He did recognize that he needed to earn his minutes and was unsuccessful in doing so for Coach Miller or Coach Allen.

"Basketball was part of it," he said. "I would have loved to have played more, but that’s not for me to decide. I respect the coaching staff, I think they’re headed in the right direction. I think Jerome’s a good coach for the program and is gonna help them be more successful in the future than they were in the beginning of the year. I think that’s part of it, I just needed to find a better situation for myself. I wish the team the best of luck and I know they’re gonna be fine...It was more a personal decision as far as finding a better situation for me closer to home where I can hopefully play more and contribute."

He noted that the coaching change and turmoil surrounding that was frustrating but insisted it had "nothing to do" with his decision.

As to why he left school midway through the year, he hopes to find a team to play for this semester. At the moment he's not sure if that's possible, but is still trying.

In all, he came across as very respectful and mature with regards to his decision. It's hard to argue with someone hoping to be closer to home and family, and I'm sure that leaving Penn was not an easy decision for him. He wished the rest of the team luck and expressed confidence that the team has the necessary pieces to be successful.

As a player, I liked what I saw from him when he did play. I think Carson could have been a major contributor down the line for the Quakers, and fully expect him to be successful wherever he transfers.