Ivy League hoops will be seeing a new level of the talent in the coming years. Riverside-Brookfield athlete Sean McGonagill recently committed to play college basketball for Brown University. While the Ivy League does not technically distribute athletic scholarships due to their outstanding academics, Brown provided McGonagill with a generous amount of financial aid which rivals most athletic scholarships.
“[Brown] couldn’t give me a full scholarship, but they wanted me to play basketball for them,” said McGonagill. “Plus when I get a job in college, I’ll be able to take care of any other costs.”
Brown certainly has good reason to so desperately want a standout hoops star like McGonagill on campus. Last season, McGonagill averaged 16.7 points per game, 5.2 assists, 2.3 steals per, made a total of 58 3-point shots and 76.4% of his free throws. He was the team leader in each of the categories mentioned.
“[Sean] got to Brown through hard work,” stated Coach Mike Reingruber. “And it’s great when you see a kid work as hard as him and achieve success. It’s a great honor for him to compete at the Division 1 level.”
“I’m happy for him,” he added. “I’m very happy for him.”
In addition to Brown, several colleges expressed interest in McGonagill’s basketball talent, including other Ivy League schools Columbia and Cornell, Loyola and North Dakota. The latter offered him a full scholarship, but McGonagill had his future in mind in addition to basketball.
“It’s hard to pass up an education like Brown,” stated McGonagill. “They showed the most interest in me, and I was interested in them as well. When I went to visit there recently, I needed questions answered: How hard is the workload there with basketball? How does travel impact my workload? Obviously, they gave me good answers.”
Like most Ivy League schools, Brown has not had much success with basketball. In over 70 NCAA Division 1 basketball tournaments, Brown has only made the tournament two times (in 1939 and 1986). They did not win the tournament either time. They are relying heavily on incoming talent like McGonagill to take the team to the tournament for the first time in over 20 years. It’s a stretch, but when you have a player like McGonagill on the court, anything is possible regardless of the team he’s on.
