AROUND THE IVIES: Historically Dominant Yale Headlines Ancient Eight

As we near the midpoint of the Ivy League season, preseason narratives are beginning to take shape. After losing Siyani Chambers ’16 to an ACL injury before the year started, Harvard was projected a distant fourth in the standings behind the league’s academic middle class—Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. Narrow losses to Providence and Kansas and a run to the finals of the Diamond Head Classic changed the story on the Crimson temporarily, but injuries and defensive lapses have induced a market correction. After five straight losses, Harvard carries the worst point differential in the Ancient Eight.

The three preseason favorites, by contrast, have gone 13-0 against the rest of the league. Yet calling it a three-team race is a bit misleading. Through six games, Yale is on pace to be one of the most dominant teams in the last two decades. The Bulldogs have six of their remaining eight games on the road—including trips to Morningside Heights and Jadwin Gymnasium—but have aced their first exams. After some early-season struggles, Yale is knocking on the door of Ken Pomeroy’s top 50. That plateau hasn’t been crossed since the Harvard teams of 2012 and 2014, statistically the two best league champions of the 21st century.

The battle for second between the league’s welterweights, Columbia and Princeton, highlights the third full weekend of play. Despite starting 5-1, Columbia has been less than impressive—barely surviving a Harvard team without junior forward Zena Edosomwan and needing a late run to get past Brown. Princeton, by contrast, put up a much better fight against Yale and ran Harvard out of the gym. Tiger forward Henry Caruso is a matchup nightmare at the four and gives Princeton a lot of lineup flexibility. Of all the teams in the league, only the Tigers can ably punish Yale for going big with seniors Justin Sears and noted Whiffenpoof Brandon Sherrod. While Yale is the definite favorite heading down the stretch, Princeton has the best shot at knocking it off.

For the remainder of the league, the future is much rosier than the present. Lost in Yale’s dominance has been the emergence of one of the most productive freshman classes in recent memory. Cornell’s Matt Morgan ranks second the league in scoring, performing with decent efficiency for the league’s highest-volume shooter. Just behind him is Dartmouth’s Evan Bourdeaux, who in his first year on campus has been better than 2015 graduate Gabas Maldunas—arguably the best Big Green player of the last five years.

Beyond the cream of the crop is a deep pool of contributors. Both Penn and Harvard boast freshmen backcourts with tough-nosed point guards and excellent spot-up shooters. Princeton’s Devin Cannady is knocking on the door of the starting lineup with stellar backcourt contributions—ranking among the league’s top 20 in scoring while approaching the rarified 50-40-90 air of efficiency. Rounding out the impressive group is quality talents Troy Whiteside, Weisner Perez, and Max Rotschil—all of whom have shown All-Ivy flashes in small samples.

On the backs of this freshman class comes a group of high school seniors whose next four years will do a lot to determine the league’s future. Harvard brings in a pair of ESPN Top-100 recruits in Chris Lewis and Robert Baker Jr. in a class ranked an absurd 10th in the nation. However, the league’s incoming talent runs deeper than that—both Penn and Yale bring in three-star recruits in deep classes.

Lewis and Baker Jr. are crucial quintessential components of the vision Harvard coach Tommy Amaker sells to recruits—a Top 25 basketball program paired with the world’s best education. Amaker isn’t the first, nor the only, Ivy League coach to pitch this on the recruiting trail, but he’s by far the most successful. It isn’t surprising that Amaker can recruit (after all, the same man brought the nation’s no. 1 recruiting class to New Jersey, a feat more impressive than taking a Valentine to Qdoba); what’s unexpected is that the demand exists for the pitch.

After all, it runs contrary to jock stereotypes to expect the nation’s best athletes to choose to challenge themselves academically—especially with UNC offering the degree equivalent of Natural Disasters and Kentucky hosting freshmen on a glorified seven-month training camp. Harvard’s ability to establish proof of concept could be a huge boon for the league’s elite. James Jones, Mitch Henderson, and Kyle Smith can all pitch roughly the same academic credentials at Harvard and ascendant basketball programs. With expanded financial aid eliminating a historical recruiting barrier, a deep run by an Ivy League team could close the gap further.

For now, a wild three-team race begins. On to the picks:

PRINCETON AT CORNELL

Cornell is the league’s biggest wild card. Morgan and backcourt mate Robert Hatter rank one-two in the league in scoring but are high-volume chuckers whose efficiency is hard to predict. When they are on, the Big Red are hard to stop. When they aren’t, it gets ugly quick. Against Princeton, who has the guard play to break the Cornell press with ease, it won’t be pretty.

Pick: Cornell

PENN AT COLUMBIA

After sweeping a home Ivy weekend, Penn has restored some faith to a Palestra that has seen a young team endure significant growing pains this weekend. Senior Darien Nelson-Henry gives the team one of the league’s most reliable deep post threats and helps bail out freshmen Jake Silpe and Jackson Donahue from the burden of having to create their own shot late in the shot clock. Penn doesn’t have nearly enough three-point shooting to win here, but it will be competitive down the stretch.

Pick: Columbia

YALE AT DARTMOUTH

The last time Yale went to Hanover, it let the Ivy title slip through its grasp. On a four-game slide, Dartmouth doesn’t look capable of repeating the feat.

Pick: Yale

BROWN AT HARVARD

Brown has long been the league’s backstop. Losing streaks die at home against the Bears, and Friday night—with Harvard getting Edosomwan back from injury—looks to be no different.

Pick: Harvard

PENN AT CORNELL

Even Captain Morgan might not make it out to this one.

Pick: Cornell

BROWN AT DARTMOUTH

After the poise they displayed in two games against a full-strength Crimson, Dartmouth’s recent play has to be considered disappointing. This is a young team whose two best players (sophomore Miles Wright and Boudreaux) are underclassmen that doesn’t excel in any particular area, but is well balanced in most. Wright in particular hasn’t scored in double digits in the last four games and if his team is going to rebound, it needs him to take a major leap.

Pick: Dartmouth

PRINCETON AT COLUMBIA

This game carries heavy importance for Columbia, who still has to travel to Princeton and host Yale at home. The Lions are dependent on when their shaky defense shows up. Against both Yale and Harvard, it stayed close when it was able to force turnovers and fell behind when its opponents hit its shots. Against the league’s second-best shooting team, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Pick: Princeton

YALE AT HARVARD

This rivalry has historically been the cream of the league. I wrote twice last year about the barbs fired at Harvard by Yale coach James Jones, whose obsession with knocking Harvard off its perch is thinly veiled at best. Yale has a rare two-game winning streak at Lavietes, scoring the league’s only win against the 2014 Crimson and winning what looked to be a league-deciding Friday night contest a year ago.

That story ended in the most heartbreaking of fashions—after an epic collapse against Dartmouth and a final-minute defeat in the playoff, Yale was not selected for a postseason tournament. With Sherrod providing a perfect frontcourt fit to reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Justin Sears, Yale has a scary combination of excellent interior defense and spot-up shooting. Sherrod, whose record-setting streak of 30 consecutive makes came almost entirely within five feet of the basket, gives Yale a safety valve that each coach in the league would take in a heartbeat.

On the other side of the floor, the Crimson will be better with a rejuvenated Edosomwan, but asking Johnson and McCarthy to handle Yale guards Jack Montague and Makai Mason will be too much.

–Staff writer David Freed can reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com