Sorry we haven't had one of these in a long time.  So without further ado, here you go:

1) Penn's landed its first 2014 men's basketball recruit, as Steve Rennard has given Glen Miller a verbal commitment. The Metuchen, N.J., native plays point guard and has been given an 80 grade on ESPN.com. According to ESPN/Scouts, "He's a floor general that makes everyone around him better" and has the potential to "be a very good Mid-Major lead guard." His other top choices were Iona and Vermont.

2) We've been hearing rumors for a while, but yesterday it was officially announced that Mark Fabish has been hired as Penn's tight ends coach. Fabish is a 1997 College graduate and played wide receiver for two Ivy League championship teams.

"We have actually been targeting Mark for a long time, and we are certainly pleased to have him join the staff," coach Al Bagnoli said in the press release.

The press release was actually better than your average one so I encourage you to read it.

3) Normally we don't talk about Quakers who get all-conference weekly honors since it's normally not that impressive. But Erin Brennan was named national Rookie of the Week by womenslacrosse.com after last Sunday's two-goal, one-assist output against Fairfield in Penn's first round win.

Done with the jokes, back to reality. Here we go:

1) This year the race for Big 5 Most Outstanding Player was pretty close. In my opinion, Dionte Christmas was the best player in the City, leading the Big 5 with 19.5 points per game. Dante Cunningham had the best postseason of anyone in the Big 5.  But in the end Ahmad Nivins won the award. In some ways this is similar to Alex Barnett winning Ivy Player of the Year.  Simply put, without the output of these two players, their respective teams clearly wouldn't have been half as good as they were.

2) Despite claiming to cover Ivy sports, Ivy Gate rarely has done so over the last couple of years (only 15 posts have the "sports" tag dating back to the start of 2007).  However, in the last few weeks contributor Max Wasserman has created an Ivy Sports Roundup that covers the past weekend's games.  Each of the eight schools get an entry, including who they have bragging rights over. This week Penn ranked seventh (ouch) yet had bragging rights over Harvard.  If nothing else, check out the hilarious video from Conan O'Brien on old timey baseball.

3) A Big 5 coach is leaving.  So is an Ivy League one.  Ok, so they're both assistants.  First, Villanova associate head coach Patrick Chambers was introduced yesterday as Boston University's new head coach.  Cornell head coach Steve Donahue was a leading candidate early on to replace Dennis Wolff, who coached the Terriers for the last 15 years, but he said he wasn't interested. In addition, there were rumors that Chambers might be a candidate to replace Glen Miller, if and when the Penn coach left the program.

Meanwhile, Harvard's Fly By Blog is reporting that Harvard assistant coach Will Wade is leaving to become an assistant coach at VCU under newly hired head coach Shaka Smart. Wade was a key recruiter under Harvard's Tommy Amaker (HT Timothy Walsh).

1) As a follow up to my post yesterday about Cornell joining the Big Ten, Ivy Gate has their own take on the matter. I strongly advise you to take a look at some of the links in that article.

I should add that on the basketball-u boards, a similar discussion of Penn joining the ACC is happening, though most commentators realize that's not going to happen. Instead, there's interesting talk about a (hypothetical) conference of solid academic institutions that also have strong athletics (Penn, Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown etc...).

FGM, meanwhile, believes Penn should join the SEC.

2) In Penn news, former Penn coxswain Colin Groshong was on Oxford's winning boat in England's famous competition between Oxford and Cambridge simply known "The Boat Race."  Oxford won the 4.25 mile race on the Thames River by 3.5 lengths. The San Francisco native graduated from the College in 2007 and is in his final year as a graduate student at Oxford.

Below is a picture of Colin getting tossed into the river after the win (courtesy of former Penn assistant lightweight rowing coach John Fife).

1) I know it's a little old, but here's Soft Pretzel Logic's look at Villanova's Elite Eight win. It's a little disjointed at first, but by the end Tannenwald makes sense.

2) The Cornell Basketball Blog has a look at next year's projected Ivy rosters.  However, with recruiting not finalized, I don't know how accurate it necessarily will be. For example Penn is projected to have 16 players, which means they'd bring in four freshmen to complement the 12 returning players.  Also, it says Penn will only have one senior, which is defined as a player in their final year of eligibility during 2009-2010.  So unless Darren Smith and/or Andreas Schriber apply for a medical redshirt, Penn's number will actually be three.

3) Ok so there aren't any Big 5 or Ivy League coaches in this ad, but this Guitar Hero ad with Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams is hilarious.

1) Dartmouth played in the opening round of the NCAA Women's Tournament, and it wasn't pretty. No. 1 Maryland destroyed them, winning 83-52. Not helping the Big Green, the game was played at Maryland's Comcast Center. Here's a more humorous look at the game.

2) The women's basketball team participated in the "Pink Zone" campaign to raise money/awareness for breast cancer research this season. Today Penn athletics announced that the team raised over $8,000 this year from "Pink Zone" t-shirts, individual contributions and ticket sales from the game against Yale which was designated the "Pink Zone" game of the year for Penn.

3) Alex Grendi, who was a key contributor to the men's soccer team's Ivy League Championship, was signed to a developmental contract by the Columbus Crew earlier this month after being drafted in January. Well last night the Crew tied the Houston Dyanmo, and Grendi got an assist -- according to Penn Athletics.  However, ESPN didn't give him the assist. I guess the world wide leader only counts the pass immediately preceding the goal.

In honor of America's favorite ethnic holiday (sorry Cinco de Mayo), here's Random Ivy notes, in green font.

1) Want to know how the City Six coaches are filling out their brackets?  Well Soft Pretzel Logic has you covered.  I personally was intrigued by the John Calipari/Bruiser Flint versus Jim Calhoun/Glen Miller rivalry.

2) A favorite takeoff of the NCAA bracket of mine is "Salary Madness" which simulates the NCAA tournament results based on median salaries of the 65 institutions. As normal, the Ivy League representative did extremely well, as Cornell finished second to Duke

The Big Red actually got hosed last year, as they faced powerhouse Stanford in the first round. In fact, the Cardinal won last year's bracket so Cornell, despite the fourth highest median, lost in the first round.

3) The women's bracket was announced today. As has been the case in recent years, the Ivy League representative has gotten a 16 seed. That won't change this year, as Dartmouth faces Maryland at the Comcast Center (no not that one) in College Park, Md.

In terms of other Penn-related schools, Big 5 foes Temple and Villanova got bids, as did Drexel. Those teams will face No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Utah and No. 5 Kansas State, respectively.

4) Moving away form March Madness, the University announced "firm plans" for Penn Park, the 24-acre parcel of land that the University will turn into athletic and recreational fields. The article doesn't give an intended date of completion, but it does quote from the DP.

1) It might be spring break, but big Penn sports news keeps on coming. In a move that isn't that surprising, Penn will not re-sign women's basketball coach Pat Knapp. That's what happens when your winning percentage at Penn is .348.

2) Here is the final Schuylkill 16 of the year.  I've really enjoyed participating in this poll, and hopefully it'll continue next season.  Something I never really noticed until now, but the college basketball regular season (well including this Championship Week) is 17 weeks -- just as long as the NFL.

3) In exactly a week one of the best-attended NCAA tournaments will being -- I'm talking about wrestling of course.  Surprisingly, one of the biggest challengers to the perennial Big 12 and Big 10 favorites is Cornell, who is ranked second in the nation.  The Wall Street Journal, of all things, has a nice profile on the Big Red and their unprecedented dominance this year.

Since there's a chance that you might need a subscription for that link to work, I'll excerpt the first part of the article after the jump.

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1) Yes I'm linking to my own article, but Harrison Gaines has decided to transfer from Penn.

2) In the de facto Ivy League Championship game, the Dartmouth women's basketball team beat Harvard to clinch the auto-bid to the NCAAs.  The win gave the Big Green its 17th championship overall, second consecutive and fourth in the last five seasons.

3) The Ivy League announced its men's All-Ivy teams, and Penn did not do very well.  Tyler Bernardini managed an honorable mention (his second-straight such honor).  And ... that was it.

Zack Rosen, who many predicted would be Rookie of the Year in the preseason, did not win that award. Instead it went to Cornell guard Chris Wroblewski who played in 30 games (seven starts) and averaged 6.7 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 25.3 minutes per game. Meanwhile, Rosen started 27 of Penn's 28 games and averaged 8.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists (which led the league) and 31.1 minutes per game.  Then again, Cornell won the league with a 11-3 record, while Penn limped to a 6-8 finish.

But I definitely did agree with the Player of the Year choice, as Dartmouth's Alex Barnett more than deserved that honor. He led the league with 19.4 points per game, and ranked eighth in rebounds with 5.6, as he led the Big Green to a 7-7 Ancient Eight record. That was the team's best finish in four years.\

4) Here's a nice reminiscing of old times at the Palestra and Franklin Field.

1) In case you don't know by now, Cornell won the Ivy League men's hoops title with a 83-58 win over Penn last night.  Or not. It turns out that when Cornell fans stormed the court at the end of the game, they broke a scorekeeper's computer. So in fact the score should've been 83-59.  Take that Cornell.

2) Looking at the women's basketball scores, Harvard and Dartmouth both won last night. So tonight if Dartmouth beats Brown and Harvard loses to Yale, then the Big Green will win the league. Otherwise, if just one of those scenarios happen, then the Big Green will clinch a share of the title.  And if neither of those happen, the two schools will play a de facto Ivy League title game Tuesday in the teams' final regular season game.

3) As the only league to regularly schedule basketball games on Friday night, the Ivy League has gotten some national attention.  From bettors.

4) Lastly, some sad news. Chuck Daly, former Penn and Detroit Pistons coach, unfortunately has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We wish him all the best in his fight against this deadly disease.

1) In a year in which four of the Big 5 schools -- sorry Penn -- could legitimately claim to have the Big 5 Player of the Year, Dick Jerardi has made up his mind.  So who does he pick out of Dionte Christmas, Daunte Cunningham, Rodney Green, Ahmad Nivins or Scottie Reynolds?  Here's a hint: Jerardi's choice averages more points, rebounds, blocks and has a better FG and FT percent than any of other player.

2) Mark DeRosa, who played baseball at Penn from 1994-96, is now a member of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. The headline might be a little off -- although he's playing against the World now, he obviously never played against Penn -- but it's actually a good article. Well worth the read.

3) Remember that Bank of America promotion I mentioned yesterday?  Well it's now officially "The Penn Visa issued by Bank of America Fan of the Game." Though yet again the headline is off, as the word "fan" is omitted. So enter to be the credit card of the game!