The 2001-02 Ivy League basketball season is long over, and the 2002-03 season is months away from beginning. But out in the vast reaches of cyberspace, under names like "Big Red Fan," "Bleeding Green," "Roar Lion Roar," and "Eli Yale," some of the League's most passionate fans are still debating the merits of their favorite teams.
The site is Ivybasketball.com, and it was founded in October 2000 by Jake Wilson, a 1999 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. According to the site's "Frequently Asked Questions" page, the purpose of Ivybasketball.com "which is run by Wilson and fellow Pennsylvania alumnus Andy Glockner -- is "to provide additional information to supplement the information published by the league on its official website."
Some of the "additional information" provided by Ivybasketball.com includes recruiting updates, a weekly column entitled "Inside the Ivy," a weekly "PowerPoll" ranking the eight Ivy League teams and an "alumni tracker" page, where Ivy League alumni playing professionally are listed. The Dartmouth alumni listed include Greg Buth '01 (who plays for Spain's Badajoz Caja Rural), James Blackwell '91 (Turkey's Oyak Renault), and Crawford Palmer '92 (Spain's Caceres C.B.).
The site's most popular feature, however, is a message board, where Ivy League basketball fans discuss everything from individual games to recruiting to issues facing collegiate athletics as a whole. While the discussions are often spirited, the forum is moderated to remove "inappropriate or otherwise disrespectful or uncivil posts."
While Ivybasketball.com is not affiliated with the Ivy League or any of the individual schools, the site has gained the attention of many prominent figures around the league. In recent months, a new feature on the site entitled "Verbatim" has featured interviews with the likes of Pennsylvania head coach Fran Dunphy, Yale coach James Jones, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban (whose HDNet network broadcast 11 Ivy League basketball games this year) and Brown forward G.J. King.
The increased interest in the site has come along with increased interest in the league, in a year that saw Yale, Pennsylvania and Princeton advance to postseason play, as well as the broadcast of 11 Ivy League basketball games on HDNet and DirectTV.
One of the current topics of discussion on Ivybasketball.com's message board is whether the 2002-03 season will be the year that the Ivy League receives two bids to the NCAA tournament. With Penn and Yale, two of last year's three Ivy Champions, returning all of their top players, many observers believe that two tournament bids is a real possibility. However, a current poll on Ivybasketball.com shows that 59% of the site's visitors do not believe that anyone other than the Ivy champions will be invited to "The Big Dance."
However many Ivy teams go on to the tournament next season, Ivybasketball.com looks to be along for the ride. One feature that the site is in the process of adding is a "travel guide," listing places for Ivy basketball fans to eat and stay when visiting other schools in the League.
In addition, the site recently added a feature called "Ivywire," which includes links to all recently published stories related to Ivy League basketball. Also, Wilson and Glockner are currently seeking a new webmaster to create a section of the site devoted to women's basketball. These new features look to increase the site's usefulness as a resource for fans of Ivy League basketball.
Wilson writes on the "Frequently Asked Questions" page that he and his colleagues run Ivybasketball.com because, "we think there is a segment of fans out there that can really use this sort of information. We have received emails from players, their families, recruits and many of my fellow fans that indicate there is a demand for this sort of thing." As the quality of play in the Ivy League continues to improve, that demand looks to grow.
