AROUND THE IVY LEAGUE: Penn Close to Crown as Season Nears Wrap

For one brief 20-hour span, we had a race.

Penn had dropped an ugly game at Columbia, while Princeton stormed from behind, as it is wont to do, to top Cornell in a double-overtime thriller.

Once again, just one game separated the two teams, shifting the focus from a February Quaker clinch to a March 7 showdown in Jadwin for a share of the Ivy title.

The Tigers promptly went out and reminded us all that they lost to Carnegie Mellon earlier this year by dropping a one-point decision against the Lions. Princeton overcame an 11-point second half deficit to take a three-point lead with under a minute to play. But then things got crazy. The Tigers let Justin Armstrong, the hottest hand on the court, manufacture a layup and a foul, and then watched Armstrong miss the free throw, only to have Noah Savage miss the front end of a one-and-one for Princeton, and Armstrong nail a jumper for the win.

Two things stand out. Penn can clinch at least a share of the Ivy title with a sweep this weekend and one Princeton loss. And Columbia probably had the most miraculous weekend in the history of Ivy League athletics.

Let’s get to this weekend’s action:

YALE (14-11, 6-4 Ivy) AT CORNELL (10-14, 5-5)

It’s really hard to tell what you’re going to get with the Bulldogs on the road.

Yale has already fallen by eight at Dartmouth and five at Brown after beating those teams by 14 and 17, respectively, at home.

The Bulldogs topped the Big Red by nine in the two teams’ earlier meeting in New Haven. Cornell will return the favor with a nine point victory in Ithaca on Friday night, as it begins a march toward a second- or third-place league finish.

BROWN (8-15, 4-6) AT COLUMBIA (10-13, 3-7)

When I challenged the readership last week to point me to a game that the Lions would actually be the odds-on favorite to win, this contest was the only one that I thought would have a remote chance of earning that rare distinction.

The landscape has obviously changed after last weekend’s festivities, and I’m now willing to give Columbia the nod in this one. Lions by five.

DARTMOUTH (5-18, 3-7) AT PRINCETON (8-14, 6-3)

The Big Green seemed very comfortable with the Tigers’ slow-down style in Hanover. And it’s not simple enough to say that Dartmouth should struggle on the road, as it has already recorded a 10-point win at Columbia (the same environment that tripped both P’s up last weekend) and took Brown to two overtimes in Providence.

Last week’s final minute collapse notwithstanding, Princeton is extraordinarily good in close games, which is what this one will likely be. The Tigers stay in the race, at least for one more evening, with a six-point win over Dartmouth.

YALE AT COLUMBIA

The interesting thing here is that the Lions could pull to within a game of the Bulldogs with a win in the Battle of the Jones Brothers.

That’s not so farfetched, either. Especially since Columbia has played Yale the closest of any of the five visitors to John J. Lee Amphitheater thus far this season. It’s not often that one gets the chance to pick the Lions for a weekend sweep of any kind, so it’s time to seize that opportunity.

Columbia takes the game by one in an absolute thriller.

BROWN AT CORNELL

The Big Red is beginning to look a lot like the Crimson, as it has seen its 5-2 league start marred by three consecutive losses.

In fact, the parallel gets a bit more eerie, when you consider that both Cornell and Harvard dropped a road contest followed by a heartbreaking Friday night home loss to Princeton and a double-digit defeat at the hands of Penn to fall back to .500. The Crimson added to its troubles by getting swept at home by Brown and Yale the following weekend, and now the Big Red has the opportunity to do the same.

Cornell hasn’t shown the same lack of intensity that Harvard exhibited during the same stretch, and it should rebound nicely to grab a 10-point win over the Bears and a home weekend sweep.

DARTMOUTH AT PENN

Last week’s slip up at Columbia notwithstanding, the Quakers have way too much firepower for the Big Green to be able to stay in this contest.

Penn could have the opportunity to clinch a share of the title and that, along with the crowd at The Palestra, should provide the Quakers with the focus necessary to run away with this contest.

Penn rolls to a 20-point victory.

Last Week: 2-4

This Season: 12-10

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.