Ivy Hoops Notebook | Crimson off the hook, says League

The verdict is in: Harvard, apparently, did not cheat.

A statement released last week by the Ivy League batted back allegations of wrongdoing in a March New York Times article centering on the Crimson basketball team and coach Tommy Amaker.

The Times article cited coaches past and present who alleged that Harvard's standards for admission had fallen under Amaker's reign. The article also saw potential NCAA violations in a pick-up basketball session with Harvard recruits and a soon-to-be hired assistant, as well as a suspicious supermarket encounter between Amaker and the father of Penn's Zack Rosen.

On the latter two points, the League's statement offered a stern rebuke. It reads in part: "Interviews with others who were involved, as well as a thorough examination of relevant records, corroborated that the coaches' contacts with prospective student-athletes and their families were entirely consistent with NCAA and Ivy League rules."

The statement specifically praises Kenny Blakeney's complicity in the investigation. Blakeney was the assistant coach who admitted to playing with recruits Max Kenyi and Keith Wright in the months before signing his contract with Harvard.

The statement was vaguer on the issue of Frank Ben-Eze, the big man rumored to be below not only Harvard's normal standards but also those of less picky Ivies.

"The Ivy League routinely reviews the admission of all recruited athletes each year, and in this year's review concluded that Harvard's admission of recruited men's basketball players complied with all relevant Ivy League obligations."

A lowering of standards would not necessarily have to violate "relevant Ivy League obligations," and Harvard Athletic Director Bob Scalise hinted in the March Times article that the guidelines were in fact changing.

"It's also a willingness to basically say, 'OK, maybe we need to accept a few more kids, and maybe we need to go after a few more kids in the initial years when [Amaker] is trying to change the culture of the program,'" he said.

"It's a willingness to say that we really do want to compete for the Ivy championship."

More Gore for Adam. Cornell senior Adam Gore has torn his ACL and will miss at least the non-conference season, according to a report in The Ithaca Journal.

Gore sustained the tear to his left knee in a workout last week, some 22 months after doing the same thing to his opposite knee.

Surgery is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 18 and a possible scenario would have Gore back on the court four months afterwards, the Journal reports. Cornell's Ivy League season starts on Jan. 17.

As a junior, Gore was third on the Ivy champs in scoring, averaging 10.2 points per game.

Early commits. Tucker Halpern and Andrew McCarthy - a pair of 6-foot-7 Massachusetts forwards who had claimed interest in Penn - have publicly committed to Brown for the class of 2013. Dee Giger, a North Carolina shooting guard, has committed to Amaker's Harvard.

*This article was corrected at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008. We erroneously stated that Keegan Hornbuckle committed to Arizona, when in fact, he has not committed anywhere publicly.

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