I-Ball Season Recap

Intramural basketball may not seem as serious as it is here at Penn. Intramural basketball or “I-Ball” goes on from the middle of January all the way until the middle of March.

It’s a two month long season, including 13 regular season games and a tournament to end the season. The regular season has a huge impact on each team’s seeding in the tournament.

The regular season games are played in Penn’s Fitness Center on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. Each team plays once each week. This I-Ball season there were 30 teams: 29 student teams and 1 staff team. One team consists of at least four players. The games are four on four full-court games and last for 15 minutes.

The favorites to win at the beginning of the season were Michigan State, which included Jai Wood, Ryan Lau, Zane Gilroy, and John Olson. Albany, which consisted of Drew Brady, Wil Tiebout, Stuart Feeley, and Scout Spalding, was also a favorite after making it to the final four in the 2015 I-Ball season.

When the tournament started, Albany was a #1 seed and Michigan State was a #2 seed, but neither teams wound up making the final four. The final four featured Harvard (Zach Biggs, Jacob Byler, Dominic Mares, and Tanner Matlock), Coastal Carolina (Anthony Lovisa, Nate Lovisa, Luke Schneider, and Nolan Metcalf), Xavier (Reese Jackowiak, Reece Treber, Evan Wilson, Mike Dhuivetter), and Davidson (Parker Hart, Satchel Carnine, Ron Wang, Luke Bilotta).

Coastal Carolina advanced to the championship due to a forfeit by Harvard. Xavier started the game strong, opening up with a 4 point lead, but Davidson responded with a 5-nothing run that put them up 5-4 over Xavier. After each team exchanged points, it was 6-5 with less than 20 seconds left. Xavier, down 1, elected to go for the win rather than a tie. Evan Wilson shot a deep 3-pointer as time expired, but the ball hit the front of the iron and rolled out. Davidson won with a final score of 6-5.

The championship game was Coastal Carolina vs. Davidson. Coastal found themselves down with under 10 minutes left in the game. Anthony Lovisa came up big, scoring 8 points off of four 3-pointers to give Coastal the lead for good. Luke Bilotta attempted a late comeback, hitting a key 3-pointer to put Davidson within striking distance. Coastal won the game and the championship with a final score of 12-8.