Quick thoughts from Saturday night”s results
Best Team: Yale. Yale gets the rare P”s sweep by taking down Princeton 58-54 at home. Reggie Willhite was the star, dropping 20 points, including a second-half highlight reel dunk, while grabbing 9 rebounds. Greg Mangano had another dominant performance as well, getting 20 points of his own (on 17 shots, though) to go with 12 rebounds, for yet another double-double. The Yale backcourt didn”t shoot well–Grace was 0-4, Morgan was 1-9–but they finally ended their turnover woes, limiting giveaways to 10. Princeton was coming off of a very hot shooting night against Brown, but the Tigers were held to 33% from the field (and an ice cold 19% from deep), with Ian Hummer”s 18 points leading the way. Princeton falls out of the title chase with their third loss of the season.
Best Winning Streak: Harvard defeated Columbia 57-52, in a game that was closer than many anticipated. Columbia was actually within two points at 48-46 after an Alex Rosenberg three with 2:39 to play. The Crimson worked it inside to Wright though, and got a few patented crunch-time stops to push the lead back out to 6 and hold on for a 25th consecutive victory at Lavietes. Harvard”s starters went the distance in this one, with all five playing at least 30 minutes, and only one point coming from the Crimson bench. Laurent Rivard had 20 points on 5-11 shooting, getting to the line for 12 attempts and converting on 8 of them. Keith Wright pitched in with 15 (6-10) and 6. Columbia kept it close behind a balanced attack that saw eight players score. Most of the offensive production came from the backcourt, led by 15 from Brian Barbour. The game was won at the free throw line as Harvard connected on 21 of 32 attempts, while Columbia made all 8 of their attempts.
Best Freshman: Shonn Miller had a big night up in Hanover to lead the Big Red to an important 68-59 road victory, exacting revenge for last year”s debacle at Dartmouth. The conference Rookie of the Year favorite had 15 points on an efficient 7-11 night, and added 10 rebounds. Wroblewski dropped 14 points and Gray added 13 in the effort. The Big Red move to 3-3, and Cornell fans have to be feeling good about how their young team has performed so far in a season for which many had low expectations. With road games left against Yale, Penn, and Princeton, as well as a home contest against Harvard, Cornell still have a long road ahead of them to finish this season at .500. Meanwhile, Dartmouth falls to 0-6, though that record may speak more to the strength of this year”s league than the futility of the Big Green. Kirk Crecco had 15 off the bench to lead Dartmouth last night.
Best Bounceback: Penn crushed Brown 65-48 in Providence behind another big performance from Rob Belcore. The 6″6″ guard had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Quakers, who led by 15 at halftime and never looked back. Zack Rosen was
mostly held in check, scoring only 11 points and dishing out 5 assists, as was Tyler Bernardini (9 points, 4 rebounds, 4 steals), as Penn found production from a balanced attack that included 10 from Brooks and 8 from Cartwright. Jerome Allen emptied the bench at the end of this one, getting a few minutes for the freshmen, as 15 Quakers saw some court time. For banged-up Brown, Andrew McCarthy was the Generic viagra 25 mg lone bright spot, scoring 20 points and grabbing 12 boards. Penn held the dangerous Brown backcourt of McGonagill and Albrecht to 5 points. The Quakers can now look ahead to a season-defining game at the Palestra next Friday against Harvard.
To see Friday”s Best, click here.