Men's Basketball Readies for Quirky Ivy League Schedule

This weekend marks the beginning of a six-week stretch of back-to-back conference basketball games—one of the Ivy League’s quirkiest sports traditions—for the Harvard men’s and women’s teams. Save for a few exceptions, over the next six weekends, each Ancient Eight team will play two games per weekend (one on Friday night and the other on Saturday) with both coming either at home or on the road.

If you haven’t been following Ivy League basketball up until this point, have no fear. We’ll give you all that you need to know about the conference’s eight teams, the five games today and tomorrow, and an outlook for the upcoming six weekends.

Last year’s conference marathon saw Princeton go a perfect 14-0 in league play—the conference’s first undefeated regular season since 2007-2008—en route to a championship in the inaugural Ivy League Tournament. The Tigers fell to No. 5 seed Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the second year in a row that the league produced a 12-seed for the tournament, the highest seed an Ivy League team has received since Penn was an 11-seed in 2003.

Fast-forward nine months and the dominance of Princeton and the Ivy League’s reputation as a premier mid-major conference have been replaced by parity (through 10 conference games) and a belief that 2017-2018 is a “down year” for the conference. While the conference is arguably as talented as ever from a talent point of view, only Penn and Brown (BROWN!) posted nonconference records above .500. In the latest edition of ESPN’s Bracketology, Joe Lunardi picks Penn as his Ivy League champion but slots the Quakers as a 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

If you love parity, boy, would you have enjoyed the last two-plus months of Ivy League basketball. The Ancient Eight has had its fair share of good (Cornell’s Matt Morgan and his 23.3 points per game, Penn’s quadruple-overtime win over Monmouth, Princeton’s victory at USC), bad (Cornell’s decision to play at UMass Lowell, Cornell’s subsequent 20-point loss to UMass Lowell, and Evan Boudreaux’s decision to transfer from Dartmouth), and ugly (a Harvard-Fordham game that produced 92 total points, a decision to implement Flannel Night at a Dartmouth basketball game, and New Haven, Conn.).

Harvard, Princeton, and Yale—the top three teams in the conference last season and the projected top three in the preseason poll—have all faced their fair share of struggles to begin the season. Sophomore guard Bryce Aiken—the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year—has missed six games for a Harvard team that leads the conference in turnovers. Last season, the Crimson loved the three ball more than Winthrop loves testing its fire alarms but shot 28.2 percent from long range during nonconference play this year

Princeton boasts the conference’s most talented and experienced backcourt, but its frontcourt lacks playmakers and struggles to rebound. Yale lost sophomore forward Jordan Bruner—one of the top rookies in the conference a year ago—for the season and senior point guard Makai Mason—a first team All-Ivy pick in 2015-2016—has yet to play in a game this year after suffering a stress fracture in his foot.

Each summer, Deadspin produces a series called “Why Your Team Sucks”, in which its writers pen articles finding flaws for all 32 NFL teams and their fanbases. Entering the season, it looked like the “Why Your Team Sucks” for the Brown men’s basketball team would be longer than the syllabus for Sociology 175 (15 pages, single-spaced), but Mike Martin and company have surprised some people. Like Harvard’s, the Bears’ rotation is primarily composed of underclassmen. Sophomore Brandon Anderson and freshman Desmond Cambridge are both averaging over 15 points a game while shooting over 40 percent from the field.

It’s Brown, so a successful season means putting up 100 points on in-state rival Johnson & Wales (check) and having Jordan Spieth in attendance at one of its home games (probably not happening this year), but sneaking into the conference tournament as the four-seed doesn’t seem out of the question for a team that currently holds both the Ivy League’s fifth-highest Pomeroy College Basketball Ranking and its fifth-highest acceptance rate. If this mediocrity is intentional, don’t be surprised to see Jeff Fisher replace Phil Estes as the school’s football coach in the near future.

That’s not to say that the rest of the conference is without its flaws. Columbia won just three games in nonconference play (including one against Sarah Lawrence College) and is 1-9 in road games. Cornell junior guard Matt Morgan is arguably the best offensive player in the Ivy League yet his team has managed to concede more than 80 points eight times this season (including 91 to a Princeton team that averages 71.4).

Dartmouth cannot score to save its life and saw its best player announce thathe was transferring the day before the Big Green’s first game of the season. That’s almost as little notice as the Saints’ Marcus Williams gave fellow defensive back Ken Crawley before taking out his legs.

Penn currently sits in first place in the Ivy League despite shooting a putrid 63.2 percent from the free throw line, good for 343rd out of 351 eligible NCAA teams. If there’s one thing to say about the Ancient Eight as its teams enter the meat of the conference schedule, it’s that this year it’s anyone’s league.

DARTMOUTH AT BROWN

Don’t let matchup this distract you from the fact that Dartmouth played a month of basketball last season without winning a single game.

That’s right, between its first game on Nov. 11 and a Dec. 18 win against LIU-Brooklyn, the Big Green went 0-9 to start last season. We’re not an Ivy League records keeper, but by any standard that’s really bad. To add insult to injury, Dartmouth lost what might have been its only good player when former Ivy League Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Ivy Second Team forward Evan Boudreaux decided to take his talents to Xavier.

I guess the grass is greener when not playing for the Big Green.

Let’s not forget Brown, though. Much like Dartmouth, the Bears lost an equally talented big man with an equally strange looking jump shot—forward Steven Spieth, best known for being Jordan Spieth’s younger brother. That’s not being mean, that’s actually the first thing that comes up when you Google him.

Nonetheless, Brown comes into the matchup as one of just three Ivy League teams with an overall winning record, which is unexpected to say the least.

What’s more surprising, though, is that last weekend Brown beat a Yale team that nearly beat out Harvard as the preseason favorite to win the conference.

Let’s go back two years.

It’s March of 2016. Yale goes to its first NCAA tournament in over 50 years. Somehow No. 12 Yale beats No. 5 Baylor for its first ever tournament win. It’s kind of a big deal.

What’s better though is Baylor senior Taurean Prince’s postgame interview.

Clearly stunned by the outcome a reported asks quite bluntly, “How does Yale out-rebound Baylor??”

Prince, clearly unimpressed, proceeded to give the definition of a rebound and says that Yale got more of those than the Bears did.

After last weekend though, we kind of understand the awe behind that question, albeit a little differently. I mean really, how does Brown beat Yale?

Either way, good for Brown. Also, Dartmouth comes in red hot with a five-game losing streak.

Pick: Brown

HARVARD AT YALE

If we really wanted to, we could hype up this matchup. After all, the Crimson narrowly beat out the Bulldogs as preseason favorites despite Yale earning two more first place votes than Harvard.

We could talk about how the Crimson lost to the Bulldogs in the inaugural Ivy League tournament after beating them twice in the regular season. We could talk about how Yale coach James Jones really, really doesn’t like Harvard. We could even talk about football—after seeing its team lose at home to the Crimson last season, the Yale crowd erupted into chants of “Let’s play football.” It was hilarious. We could dig even further, to 2015 when the two matched up in a winner-take-all playoff game and the Crimson came out on top to rob the Bulldogs of their first chance to dance in a long time.

The truth of the matter, though, is that both of these teams have been as lackluster and as injury-plagued as Derrick Rose.

Let me also just say that, as a Chicago native, that one really hurt to write.

Harvard enters as the Golden State Warriors of the matchup—only imagine the Warriors shooting 30 percent from three and Steph Curry is playing four minutes a game at the moment.

Yale is kind of like the Hornets—they were supposed to compete with anyone except then they lost to everyone and then they lost to Brown too. Also imagine they’re all on crutches.

That’s the sad reality of this matchup. Harvard guard Bryce Aiken comes in recovering from a knee injury while Yale lost forward Jordan Bruner to a meniscus tear and Makai Mason has yet to make his return to the court.

Twenty years ago today, Bill Clinton (a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School) denied having had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky on national television. What we can’t deny, though, is that one injured player is less than two.

Pick: Harvard

HARVARD AT BROWN

According to the Brown Daily Herald, Brown’s growing Computer Science department is struggling to pay its teaching assistants—it’s not the only instance of struggle in Providence, though. While the Bears have a winning record, I’m not sure it counts if wins come against schools such as Division III Johnson & Wales. This might be closer than people think, but the Brown Bears remain cubs for the time being.

Pick: Harvard

COLUMBIA AT CORNELL

Ah, the Gentleman C’s.

We did a bit of research and realized the phrase does not actually refer to Cornell and Columbia—instead it was actually a phrase used to describe the grade given to the children of wealthy parents who would have otherwise had a failing grade. I guess the moniker is a bit accurate then—Columbia and Cornell definitely fit the bill of institutions buoyed by association.

Regardless, all the money in the world probably couldn’t buy Cornell a good roster.

Even though the Lions enter with just four wins and pulled a Dartmouth of their own—losing nine consecutively in the span of a month—we think a nearly 40-point loss against Princeton and a 26-point loss at Columbia says it all. On the bright side, it will be “Kids Day!” in Ithaca on Saturday.

Pour one out for the Big Red.

Pick: Columbia

DARTMOUTH AT YALE

We might be beating a dead horse here, but Brown beating Yale was definitely out of touch with the order of the world. If Dartmouth could do the same, then this might be the rapture.

Pick: Yale

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at troy.boccelli@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Stephen J. Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com.