Princeton came out firing and Penn”s cold first-half shooting was too much to recover from, even for Zack Rosen, as the Tigers held off the Quakers 62-52 in the season finale at Jadwin.
With Penn”s loss, Harvard claims the Ivy throne with a 12-2 record and will represent the league in the NCAA Tournament for
the first time in 66 years. Various bracketologists have predicted that the Crimson will be given a 9 or a 10 seed, though anything between an 8 and a 12 seems plausible. The Cantabs will gather together for the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on Sunday evening to find out exactly where they”re going and who they”re playing.
Harvard players, who have midterms this week, took a break from their studying to tweet celebratory Big Dance-related comments, including Keith Wright, who tweeted Whitney Houston”s iconic “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” music video and Brandyn Curry, who tweeted “LET ME GET MY DANCING SHOES ON”. Surely, the celebrations will continue deep into the night in Cambridge.
For Princeton
and Penn, both teams will now wait to hear if
their seasons will continue in the NIT, CBI, or CIT. While most analysts who have taken a long look at the NIT think that Princeton and Penn are on the outside looking in, a few ESPN analysts have gone on the record calling both squads NIT-worthy. With the number of mid-major teams bound to narrowly miss the NCAA tournament growing by the day, I can”t imagine a scenario in which either team gets an NIT invite, especially considering the unimpressive computer numbers. If my projections are correct, Penn and Princeton (and maybe Yale) will have the opportunity to play in the CBI or CIT if they choose to go that route.
We”ll have more coverage in the coming days of all Ivy postseason action, so be sure to check back.