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The Yale women started hot at the Palestra, racing to a 17-2 lead, and never trailed in beating Penn, 68-58, on Friday night.
This was pretty much a must-win for the Quakers (9-13, 4-6 Ivy) in their fight for a slot in Ivy Madness, where Yale (14-9, 7-4) would join Princeton, Columbia and Harvard.
ESPN thinks Yale’s Azar Swain and Noah Kirkwood have the inside track to the Ivy League Player of the Year award. But don’t expect Vince Curran and the Penn faithful to agree.
The Harvard women were fighting for a win at home for their legendary coach on Kathy Delaney-Smith Day.
Facing a typical foul-heavy Ivy Saturday night game and a boisterous crowd in Newman Arena, the Penn men survived a furious rally to defeat Cornell, 73-68. Adding the hard-fought victory to Friday’s more comfortable 81-66 win at Columbia, the Quakers have now won four games in a row and remain in sole possession of second place.
The Penn women broke a five-game losing streak and maintained a shot at the Ivy tournament with a 71-61 win Saturday over Cornell at the Palestra.
As the calendar moves into February, we have reached the midpoint of the Ivy season. While this weekend brings the first back-to-back games of the season, Saturday night looks to be the more pivotal evening for the women’s division. Each game pits teams from the four tiers of the conference against one another.
Just nine days after snapping an 18-game losing streak against Penn, the Columbia women on Friday stretched their winning streak against the Quakers to two, this time in Philadelphia, 66-57.
As we near the halfway mark of the 2022 Ivy League season, here are five thoughts about the state of the race for the men’s league title:
PHILADELPHIA – Everyone at the Palestra knew what was at stake Saturday afternoon: the inside track on fourth place in the Ivies.
Down 12-2, starting power forward Michael Moshkovitz off the court with two quick fouls and a boisterous sellout Lavietes Pavilion crowd on top of them, things looked bleak for the Penn men as they made it to their bench for the first media timeout in Friday night’s nationally televised game at Harvard.
Fortunately, Steve Donahue settled his team and the Quakers bounced back for an important 78-74 road victory that has the Red & Blue at 5-2 (8-12 overall) halfway through the Ivy League schedule.
Tommy Amaker’s Crimson, meanwhile, left the court with their third loss in five league contests (10-7 overall).