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Former Princeton men's basketball coach Pete Carril died Monday at the age of 92, the school announced.
"The Carril family is sad to report that Coach Peter J. Carril passed away peacefully this morning," the family said in a statement. "We kindly ask that you please respect our privacy at this time as we process our loss and handle necessary arrangements. More information will be forthcoming in the following days."
Carril was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998 after a storied career leading the Tigers from 1967-96. He accumulated 514 wins during his 29 years at the helm, winning 13 Ivy League titles and making 11 NCAA tournament appearances.
The architect of the "Princeton Offense" won four NCAA tournament games and was part of some of the most surprising results in March Madness history.
In 1996, the No. 13 seeded Tigers beat defending champion No. 4 UCLA in a low-scoring battle that ended 43-41. In 1989, No. 16 Princeton almost completed the biggest upset in the sport's history in a 50-49 loss to No. 1 Georgetown, a team that featured Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo.
Carril also led his squad to an NIT title in 1975 while reaching as high as No. 12 in the Associated Press poll that season.
After stepping down as head coach at Princeton, Carril moved to the NBA and served as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings. He was on the staff as the squad reached the playoffs in eight straight years from 1999-2006, reaching the Western Conference Final in 2002.
Carril retired from coaching in 2011.
One day after canceling the men's and women's basketball conference tournaments, the Ivy League has canceled all spring sports amid concerns about the coronavirus.
In an official statement, the Ivy League Council of Presidents voted unanimously to cancel all sporting events for the safety of fans and student-athletes:
"With further developments in the outbreak of COVID-19, the Ivy League Presidents are announcing their unanimous decision to cancel all spring athletics practice and competition through the remainder of the academic year.
"Individual institutions will decide whether or not winter teams and student-athletes who have qualified for postseason play will participate."
After the Ivy League's decision, which included the option for schools to decide if winter sports teams could participate in postseason events, Harvard announced its men's hockey team will forfeit the ECAC best-of-three quarterfinal series against RPI.
Per ESPN.com, the Cornell women's hockey team is still scheduled to take on Mercyhurst in the NCAA tournament on Saturday at Agganis Arena in Boston.
The list of sports impacted by the Ivy League's decision include lacrosse, soccer, track and field, baseball, softball and golf.
As a result of the conference basketball tournament cancellation, the Yale men's team and Princeton women's team will receive the Ivy League's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.
After the Ivy League announced Tuesday it was canceling its men's and women's basketball tournaments amid concerns about the coronavirus, member teams have started a petition to reinstate the tourney:
"Every single team in this league devotes their entire year to reaching this level of competition," the Change.com petition read. "We feel the decision to cancel the tournament was made without enough serious consideration for the student athletes and the investments that have been made up to this point in our season. This is the pinnacle of what we have worked for since August."
It also noted other conferences are going forward with their tournaments.
Additionally, the league announced regular-season champions—Yale on the men's side and Princeton on the women's side—will automatically qualify for the NCAA tournament.
As of Tuesday, the NCAA has not made any changes to its plans for March Madness.
Harvard star Bryce Aiken noted his objections to the ruling:
The spread of COVID-19 has created significant concerns worldwide, including in sports that feature large gatherings of fans. The NBA has considered playing games with no spectators in the stands.
According to CNN, the disease has caused 26 deaths in the United States as of Tuesday with 732 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
Amid concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, the Ivy League has canceled its men's and women's basketball tournaments.
Per an official statement from the league, the decision to cancel the events was made with the "health of students as well as the campus and the general community in mind."
The league ruled that regular-season conference champions Yale (men) and Princeton (women) will receive automatic bids to the NCAA tournament.
Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris issued a statement:
“We understand and share the disappointment with student-athletes, coaches and fans who will not be able to participate in these tournaments. Regrettably, the information and recommendations presented to us from public health authorities and medical professionals have convinced us that this is the most prudent decision.”
The Ivy League tournament was scheduled to begin March 13 with the women's semifinals and run through March 15 with the men's championship at Lavietes Pavilion in Boston.
The decision to cancel the basketball tournament comes after Massachusetts state health officials announced the number of confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases in the state increased from 28 on Sunday to 41 on Monday, per Melissa Buja and Marc Fortier of NBC Boston.
The Ivy League was the last Division I conference to implement a tournament starting with the 2016-17 season. Prior to that, the automatic bid went to the league's regular-season champion.
Yale (23-7, 11-3 in conference) will be making its second straight NCAA men's tournament appearance. Princeton (26-1, 14-0 in conference) will be in the NCAA women's tournament for the third consecutive year.
The NCAA announced a hefty punishment against the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team and former head coach Jerome Allen on Wednesday.
The NCAA committee on infractions handed Allen a 15-year show-cause order that requires any NCAA school that may employ him during that time to "restrict him from any athletically related duties unless it shows cause why the restrictions should not apply." Any employing university must also suspend Allen for the first 50 percent of the season if he is a coach.
Allen was found to have taken at least $250,000 in bribe money from Philip Esformes, the father of a prospect, between 2013 and 2015. He was fired by Penn in March 2015, prior to this scandal becoming public, after serving as head coach since 2010. Allen had also played at the university from 1991-95, winning Ivy League Player of the Year twice.
The NCAA handed Penn two years of probation, a three-week ban on all men's basketball recruiting activities beginning in May and a seven-day reduction in men's basketball recruiting-person days.
The NCAA further explained its decision-making:
"The university and NCAA enforcement staff agreed the former coach's actions resulted in multiple tryout and recruiting contact violations in addition to accepting the supplemental pay without reporting it as athletically related income while employed at the university.
[...]
"The agreement said the former coach’s uncontested violations are classified as Level I-aggravated because the violations include unethical conduct that shows a reckless indifference to NCAA rules and seriously undermines college athletics."
Allen pleaded guilty to a bribery-related laundering charge in Oct. 2018 in Miami federal court, as Esformes was a Miami Beach businessman under investigation for executing the largest health care fraud scheme in U.S. Justice Department history.
Allen was sentenced last summer to four years probation with six months of house arrest. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams also ordered the 47-year-old to serve 600 hours of community service and pay $202,000 in fines, including $18,000 in forfeiture to the U.S. government.
Esformes was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison last September. Allen received a lighter sentence because he agreed to testify against Esformes as a government witness.
"I accepted the money to help Morris Esformes get into the school," Allen testified during the March 2019 trial. "I got his son into Penn. I got his son into Wharton. None of that would have happened without me."
Allen has been an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics since the 2015-16 NBA season.
Penn went 65-104 in Allen's tenure, finishing above .500 just once when the Quakers went 20-13 in 2011-12.
Harvard junior guard Bryce Aiken will enter the 2019 NBA draft while maintaining his NCAA eligibility, the program announced on Thursday evening.
"I am excited for the opportunity to see where I stand in this process the NBA has created," Aiken said in the release. "My goal has always been to be a Harvard graduate and an NBA player."
The 6-foot, 175-pound New Jersey native led the 19-12 Crimson in points per game (22.2) and assists per game (2.6) in 2018-19, which saw the team claim first in the Ivy League before falling to NC State in the second round of the NIT.
Aiken was named a Lou Henson All-American, as one of the top mid-major players in the country, for the second season in a row on Thursday afternoon.
The guard has battled knee injuries while at Harvard. He was limited to just 14 games in 2017-18 after injuring his knee on Feb. 2, 2018, in a loss to Columbia. His left knee required offseason surgery, and he played for the first time this season on Jan. 21.
Aiken's last game for the Crimson saw him play 36 minutes, score 19 points and show off NBA range:
He'll now try to become just the third ever Harvard player to play in the NBA, though 10 Harvard alumni have been selected in the NBA draft, according to the school.
The most prominent Harvard grad and the only Ivy League alum actively in the NBA is 30-year-old point guard Jeremy Lin, who went undrafted but went on to create "Linsanity" with the New York Knicks in 2011-12. Lin has played for seven franchises since entering the league in 2010 and is currently with the Toronto Raptors.
If Aiken is displeased with his draft stock, he can withdraw his name from consideration and return to Harvard as long as he does so before May 29.
The NBA draft will take place on June 20 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Miye Oni ended a rim.
His Yale Bulldogs couldn't get past the LSU Tigers on Thursday, losing 79-74, but that didn't stop Oni from absolutely soaring for a monster dunk late in the second half.
After trailing 45-29 heading into halftime, the Bulldogs nearly pulled off an epic comeback, highlighted by Oni's disrespectful jam and Alex Copeland's 24 points.
But LSU made the necessary plays down the stretch to preserve the win and send the Bulldogs home.
