The Ivy League has announced its 2017-18 All-Ivy teams in men's basketball, and the University of Pennsylvania was well-represented as John R. Rockwell Head Coach of Men's Basketball Steve Donahue was named the Ivy League Coach of the Year while three players received All-Ivy recognition: sophomores AJ Brodeur (unanimous first-team All-Ivy) and Ryan Betley (second-team All-Ivy), and senior Darnell Foreman (honorable mention All-Ivy).
In the midst of his third season at Penn, Donahue has overseen a tremendous turnaround in that short time, culminating with the Quakers winning a share of their 26th Ivy League title. After going 5-9 in Ivy play his first year and 6-8 last year, Penn went 12-2 in the Ivies this season to earn its first championship since the 2006-07 season.
This is Donahue's first Ivy title at Penn, but his fourth overall as a head coach in the League as he won three-consecutive championships with Cornell from 2008-10. He also was an assistant coach for six Ivy title-winning teams at Penn from 1991-2000. Recently, Donahue became just the seventh coach in Ivy League history to win 100 conference games; he has 78 wins as Cornell coach and 23 so far at Penn.
A unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection, AJ Brodeur becomes the 42nd player in program history to earn first-team All-Ivy, but he is the first since Zack Rosen in 2011-12. In addition, he is just the 11th Quakers player to earn the award as a sophomore, the most recent of those being Rosen in 2009-10. Brodeur finished the regular season averaging 12.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, numbers that jumped to 14.8 and 7.6 in Ivy play. In conference play, he finished the year second among Ivy players in rebounding, tenth in scoring, tied for second in steals per game, third in blocked shots per game, and fourth in field-goal percentage. Brodeur ended the year with 19 double-figure scoring games including four with at least 20 points, and he had three double-doubles and five games with more than 10 rebounds.
Ryan Betley led Penn in scoring this season, averaging 14.7 points per game, and in conference play he finished ninth in scoring (15.1 ppg), second in 3-point field goals made per game (2.8), fifth in 3-point field goal percentage (.448), and 15th in free-throw percentage (.741). The sophomore finished the year with 25 double-digit scoring games, a team high, including seven contests with at least 20 points and a 30-point outing in the season finale at Brown. He also had two double-doubles. Betley has hit a team-leading 79 three-point shots this year, which is fifth on Penn's single-season list, and his points-per-game average is the highest by a Penn player since Tony Hicks averaged 14.9 ppg in 2013-14.
Darnell Foreman averaged 10.4 points per game this season and led the Quakers with 108 assists and 34 steals. In Ivy play, Foreman finished 21st among Ivy players in scoring (11.1 ppg) as well as fourth in assist/turnover ratio (2.25), tied for fourth in assists per game (3.9), tied for ninth in steals (1.2), 12th in field-goal percentage (.500), and 13th in free-throw percentage (.759). The senior point guard ended the season with 17 double-figure scoring games—including two games with a career-high 21 points—after entering the campaign with 14 for his career. In Penn's games at Yale and Brown this past weekend, Foreman totaled 37 points and dished out 11 assists without a turnover.
Overall, the All-Ivy teams showed just how strong the future of the Ivy League is. The All-Ivy first team consisted of four sophomores and a junior, just the fourth time in League history no seniors made first team (also 1968-69, 1973-74, 2001-02). The All-Ivy second team, meanwhile, also consisted entirely of returning players, marking the first time in Ivy men's basketball history no seniors made first-team or second-team All-Ivy. Harvard sophomore Seth Towns was named the Ivy League Player of the Year—just the third sophomore to win the award—while Brown freshman Desmond Cambridge was voted Ivy League Rookie of the Year and Princeton's Amir Bell earned Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year.
Penn will be the second seed at this weekend's Ivy League Tournament, which will take place at The Palestra. The Quakers will face third-seeded Yale in a semifinal Saturday at 3 p.m. The winner of that game advances to Sunday's championship game at noon, where they will play the winner of Saturday's Harvard-Cornell semifinal. Both Penn's semifinal and the Tournament championship game will air live on ESPN2. The winner of the Ivy League Tournament will receive the League's bid into the NCAA Tournament.
