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Possible violations at Harvard has overshadowed the rest of the Ivy.

Ivy scandal overshadows Big Red Dance

By Andy Glockner
ESPN.com

On March 1, Cornell blasted Harvard to became the first team to qualify for the NCAA tournament and the first Ivy League champion in 20 seasons not named Penn or Princeton. With a storyline that big, who could have known that the loser of that game, the Crimson, would be the Ivy team in the national spotlight?

Part of the Big Red's below-the-fold Championship Week treatment was a byproduct of playing in the only league without a conference tournament. As such, Cornell had half a month to polish its trophy before drawing Stanford in the first round of the NCAAs.

The majority of Cornell's indifferent treatment, though, was because of the buzz from reports that fingered Harvard (of all places) for possible recruiting improprieties. Crimson head coach Tommy Amaker's March Madness involved tamping down dual fires regarding top prospect Frank Ben-Eze's academic credentials (he ultimately wasn't admitted and ended up at Davidson) and whether assistant coach Kenny Blakeney violated NCAA rules by playing pickup ball with a couple of Harvard prospects during a dead period last summer but before he was officially hired at Harvard.

Did Harvard do anything wrong? It depends who you ask, and what you ask about.

Regarding Ben-Eze, there were lingering questions as to whether the 6-foot-10 center would meet the high minimum standard for the Ivy League's complex Academic Index, which helps govern admissibility for athletes. Recruiting prospects who are under the threshold is not unusual across the Ivy; coaches find players who they hope can improve their grades and scores and meet the mark before an admissions decision is made. Harvard's admissions requirements, though, traditionally were the strictest in the league, making the reach for Ben-Eze, the 26th-ranked center in the Class of 2008, a story.

Amaker, for his part, thinks the furor is unfounded.

"I really don't have anything to add to it because we didn't do anything that we haven't always done here, which is try to attract the kids that belong here at Harvard," he said.

The school maintains that it didn't adjust its standards from prior years, though two former Crimson assistant coaches contradicted that position in a New York Times story.

If Ben-Eze's case is a sign of increased institutional commitment, Blakeney's could be one that causes increased scrutiny. According to Harvard and the league office, the school is looking into Blakeney's interactions in the pickup game with incoming freshmen Max Kenyi and Keith Wright. Once the inquiry is complete, the league will review it and report to the NCAA. That report will include proposed penalties, if any are deemed necessary.

Whether something more comes of the Harvard situation or not, the spotlight on the court this fall will be back on Cornell, with good reason. The defending champs return nearly their entire core, including the standout perimeter trio of wing Ryan Wittman (15.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg), shooting guard Adam Gore (10.2 ppg, 41.5 percent 3s) and point guard Louis Dale (13.7 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.9 apg), the league's Player of the Year. While head coach Steve Donahue noted that his team wasn't ready to win an NCAA tournament game in its first attempt, he expects the subpar performance against Stanford will serve as ample motivation.

"There's so much growth that these guys can have, that that's a challenge in itself," Donahue said. "I see and I know where each guy can be individually, how much better we can be. And I expect us to be there."

Five Things To Watch in '08-09

By Andy Glockner
ESPN.com

• Can anyone challenge Cornell?
On paper, the only team that looks equipped to do so is perennial power Penn, which struggled badly with youth and injuries last season after capturing seven of the league's previous nine NCAA bids. After a horrid nonconference run in which the Quakers were 5-12, they still managed an 8-6, third-place Ivy finish. How can Penn close that gap on the Big Red, which was perfect in Ivy play? The Quakers should get a big boost in the backcourt with the anticipated return of Darren Smith, who was expected to lead Penn in scoring but fractured a kneecap in the season opener last year, and the arrival of highly touted point guard Zach Rosen of Saint Benedict's (N.J.). If defensive stalwart David Whitehurst can regain his eligibility and his form after missing the last two seasons with academic issues, he also could be an X-factor. Despite numerous flaws, last season's Quakers gave Cornell two of its tougher games in league play, and this season's version should be considerably better. But if it's not Penn …

• Can anyone else emerge as a threat?
It looks unlikely. Brown (second place last season), Yale and Columbia (tied for fourth) all lost a lot to graduation. Princeton and Dartmouth don't have enough talent. If you have to pick a (very) dark horse, it might have to be Harvard. Yes, the Crimson finished 3-11 in league play last season, but they return virtually every rotation player from a team that upset Michigan in nonleague play. Also, despite losing top recruit Frank Ben-Eze, Tommy Amaker still has a solid freshman class coming in, so the battle for minutes should be competitive. The league looks wide open after Cornell and maybe Penn, and having an experienced returning core and an influx of young talent could pay immediate dividends in Cambridge. Given the league's history, it's hard to believe any program can make the leap from three wins to league champ in one season, but the Crimson look best positioned for a significant jump.

• Will the Ivy champ win an NCAA game for the first time since 1998?
The odds aren't great. By historical Ivy standards, neither a Cornell or Penn champion this season will match up favorably with the best of the Penn and Princeton teams from the past two decades, and those programs only combined for three NCAA wins in 19 trips. That said, Cornell has beefed up its nonconference schedule this season in part to try to improve upon what was a 14-seed and terrible draw against Stanford in the NCAAs. If the Big Red can win a couple games against name opponents and make a similar dash through the league, they could give themselves a shot against a 4- or 5-seed and a better matchup, like 13th-seeded Siena got last season against 4-seed Vanderbilt.

• Princeton's decline: Short-term fluke or big-time trouble?
Princeton was the No. 40 team in ESPN.com's Prestige Rankings but has won only five Ivy games over the past two seasons. And this season looks like it won't be much better. The Tigers lose Noah Savage, Kyle Koncz and and Lincoln Gunn, three of the four leading scorers on a team that had the seventh-worst scoring offense in the nation (57.7 ppg), and there is a lack of quality depth on the returning roster. While this year's freshman class for second-year coach Sydney Johnson has some promise, the Tigers still likely will need to get more out of junior guard Marcus Schroeder, who found himself in the doghouse down the stretch of last season. Princeton remains the league's national name program, but with only two NCAA appearances since its top-10 season in 1997-98 and one season of more than 16 wins in the last eight, how much longer can this go on before its overall reputation is diminished?

• What can he do for Brown?
A second-place finish in 2003 helped propel Glen Miller to the Penn job in 2006. A second-place finish last season helped Craig Robinson move to Oregon State. Now assistant coach Jesse Agel takes over as the Bears' third head coach in four seasons, but with a platform of success -- and expectations -- greater than any of his predecessors at the program. In the short run, overcoming the loss of leading scorers Damon Huffman (who scored 39 points in a career-ending CBI loss at Ohio) and Mark McAndrew will be difficult, but Agel, a former Vermont assistant, already is making strides to keep the winning vibes going by adding local product T.J. Sorrentine to his staff. It was Sorrentine who nailed the deep 3 that helped the Vermont deep-six Syracuse in the first round of the 2005 NCAA tournament.

If I Were Commish …

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

Scholarships. The commissioner doesn't have a say in scholarships. It's up to each institution, but the commissioner should do everything in his power to influence the presidents to give out scholarships. That would change the way the Ivy does business. It's getting harder for the coaches to recruit with so many more schools giving financial aid.

A conference tournament would also add more drama to the league's representative and ensure that in February, everyone had something to play for down the stretch.

The league should consider getting rid of the Friday-Saturday format, too. Friday-Sunday makes much more sense. The back-to-back format, especially with travel included, creates too much of a home-court advantage.