Home of the Roundball Poets
Columbia women’s basketball twice cut a 10-point second-half deficit to two, but the Lions couldn’t make that final push to get ahead of Vanderbilt and lost the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament game, 72-68, at the Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, Va. Wednesday evening.
Winning the First Four matchup between two No. 12 seeds, the Commodores move on to face No. 5 seed Baylor on Friday, while the historic Columbia season comes to a close.
Following Princeton’s victory over Columbia in Saturday night’s Ivy League championship, the thought of two conference teams making into the field of 68 seemed improbable. However, Sunday night’s selection show provided a pleasant surprise for everyone connected to the Ancient Eight, with the announcement of an automatic qualifier spot for the Tigers and an at-large bid for the Lions.
This year’s decision marks the second time the Ivies have sent two teams to the Big Dance, with Princeton claiming the second bid and Penn taking the automatic spot in 2016.
It was déjà vu all over again for Yale in the first round of the NIT as host Vanderbilt defeated the Bulldogs at Memorial Gymnasium, 71-62.
Vanderbilt jumped out to an 11-0 lead two days after Yale fell behind in a 12-0 role against Princeton in the Ivy League Tournament final. The deficit proved too much for Yale to overcome.
Laurent Rivard led
a late charge, but Harvard was unable to
climb all the way back from an 18-point deficit, falling to a dangerous Vanderbilt team 79-70 in Albuquerque. Rivard led the Crimson with 20 points on 6-7 shooting. Harvard”s usual advantage down low was negated due to big Festus Ezeli, who finished with 8 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks. The Commodores were led by the sharpshooting John Jenkins and his 27 points on 7-12 shooting. A 14-3 run that began with 4:30 to play brought Harvard within five, but the Crimson would get no closer. The loss ends an historic season for the Ivy champions with a final record of 26-5.
Head Coach Jesse Agel was fired on Monday after four years as the head coach of Brown. Agel”s Ivy record was 14-42 during his tenure, winning 3, 5,
4, and 2 league games respectively in the years since 2008-09. The Bears struggled in all four seasons, especially on the defensive end, as Brown ranked 7th or 8th in defensive efficiency every year. The most frustrating part for Brown fans was that Agel did manage to attract some solid talent to Providence; he was simply unable to put it all together. This final year was a disaster for reasons at least partially beyond Agel”s control as the entire starting five of the Bears” squad suffered injuries that kept them out of games at some point in the season, including two projected starters being out for the whole season in Tucker Halpern and Rafael Maia.
The top half of the Ivy marched on towards the postseason last weekend, as Penn and Yale picked up important sweeps. Penn”s huge victory over Harvard gives the Quakers are real shot at stealing the NCAA bid, while Yale now sits one win away from that 20-win mark that historically has meant an invite to play somewhere in March. (Only two teams hit 20 wins and were not invited to a postseason tournament last season, and neither had an RPI as high as Yale”s.) For Harvard, the upset loss at home means that the Crimson need to go to New York and get two W”s to ensure that, at worst, they”ll get a shot at revenge against Penn in a playoff. Princeton”s loss at Harvard all but ended their NCAA hopes, though a strong finish could still propel them onto the NIT bubble. Let”s look at what some smart people around the Internet are saying about Ivy postseason chances, and then I”ll give my updated projections on where each top half team will end up.