Following Saturday afternoon’s action, the upper division pulled away from the bottom half, while the Brown rebuild took a positive step forward.
Columbia bounced back from a disappointing result against Princeton by taking it out on Yale in front of 1,485 fans at Levien Gymnasium. The Lions jumped out to a 32-17 halftime lead on the strength of a 14-0 second quarter run. The Light Blue made it a 20-point game after three and widen it to a game-high 28 points with just under four minutes to go in the contest. Defensively, they limited the Bulldogs to 32% shooting and only 49 points, the first time they held an Ivy opponent under 50 this season.
The win kept Columbia tied at the top of the leaderboard with Princeton, which defeated Dartmouth 64-47 at Jadwin Gymnasium for its ninth straight victory.
The Big Green kept things within reach over the game’s first 21 minutes, finding themselves down only six, 31-25, early in the third quarter. The Tigers would quickly end any upset hopes with a 18-6 run over the last 6:39 of the quarter to open up an insurmountable 21-point advantage.
The weekend’s biggest game was at the Palestra, as Harvard looked to keep pace with Columbia and Princeton with a season sweep of Penn. In addition to avenging the team’s 24-point loss at Lavietes Pavilion on Jan. 28, the fourth-place Quakers were hoping to create some separation from fifth place Yale.
The teams were knotted at 22 with 6:26 left in the half, but a 9-0 run by the Quakers helped them take a 34-25 lead into the locker room. The Red & Blue stretched the lead to 15 on three different occasions, but the Crimson kept things from getting out of hand and were only down 11 heading into the final quarter.
Penn went up a game-high 17 points twice in the early part of the fourth quarter. With the home team up 66-49 at the 4:35 mark, Harvard used a 11-0 run to make it a six-point game with just under a minute to go. While the Quakers struggled from the line at the end, making only four of eight attempts, it was enough to hold off the Crimson.
In Ithaca, Brown’s defense held Cornell to 11% shooting and led 19-6 at the end of the opening quarter. The lead stretched to 20 with 4:22 left in the second frame, but the Big Red took 12 of the final 14 points to cut the Bruno’s lead to 10 at halftime.
On the strength of a 10-2 run, Cornell made it a 43-41 game with 3:16 mark remaining in the third quarter and were only down four entering the final 10 minutes of regulation. The Bears regrouped from their 15-minute funk, scoring the next 23 points and finishing the game on a 27-3 note for the series-tying road win.
The final 28-point victory was the biggest for Brown since a 35-point win over Columbia in Feb. 1995. The third league win, which triples last year’s total and matches the most for the Bears since the 2018 campaign, gives Bruno a one-game lead over Cornell for sixth place.
Saturday’s results
Columbia over Yale, 74-46
Princeton over Dartmouth, 64-47
Penn over Harvard, 70-64
Brown over Cornell, 76-48
Standings
Columbia 8-2 (19-4, overall)
Princeton 8-2 (17-5)
Penn 7-3 (15-8)
Harvard 7-3 (14-8)
Yale 5-5 (11-12)
Brown 3-7 (10-12)
Cornell 2-8 (9-14)
Dartmouth 0-10 (2-22)
The final weekend of regular season back-to-backs has Columbia at Harvard, looking to build upon its 26-point home win on Jan. 14 for their third straight season sweep. It should be more of a challenge for the Lions, since the Crimson typically play better at Lavietes than on the road and they should see more of Harmoni Turner, who inexplicitly came off the bench at Levien and only played 24-plus minutes.
Princeton, which beat Brown by 13 in Providence, should be heavily favored to extend their season-best win streak to 10. Penn, meanwhile, will travel to the Lee Amphitheater to take on a Yale team that it beat by 22 points on Jan. 21 and has lost four of its last five contests. In the final game of the night, Cornell heads to Dartmouth in a matchup against two teams out of contention for the postseason.
On Saturday, the Lions will travel up to Hanover to take on a Big Green team that they defeated 79-50 on Jan. 28, while travel partner Cornell will go to Cambridge to battle Harvard. In the first game between the two teams, the Crimson came out on top of the Big Red 66-53 on Jan. 21.
The Tigers visit the Bulldogs for the return match of their season series. The Orange & Black throttled the Elis 79-30 when the teams met up in New Jersey back on Jan. 28. In Providence, the Quakers, which defeated the Bears 74-53 on the league’s opening weekend.
Fri., Feb. 17
Cornell at Dartmouth, 6:00 p.m.
Columbia at Harvard, 6:00 p.m.
Penn at Yale, 6:00 p.m.
Princeton at Brown, 7:00 p.m.
Sat., Feb 18
Columbia at Dartmouth, 4:00 p.m.
Penn at Brown, 5:00 p.m.
Princeton at Yale, 5:00 p.m.
Cornell at Harvard, 5:00 p.m.
Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend:
Kaitlyn Chen (Princeton)
vs Dartmouth: 16 points (7-10 FG, 2-3 FT), four assists, three rebounds,
Kaitlyn Davis (Columbia)
vs Yale: 11 points (4-8 FG, 3-3 FT), six rebounds, three assists, one steal
Abbey Hsu (Columbia)
vs Yale: 19 points (6-19 FG, 5-6 FT), two assists, two blocks, one rebound, one steal (1,312 career points, fourth in program history)
Kyla Jones (Brown)
vs Cornell: 20 points (8-17 FG, 4-7 FT), four rebounds, three assists, two steals
Jordan Obi (Penn)
vs Harvard: 11 points (5-7 FG), 11 rebounds, three assists
Kayla Padilla (Penn)
vs Harvard: 27 points (10-16 FG, 3-5 FT), eight assists, two rebounds, one steal (1,228 career points, ninth in program history)
Nyla McGill (Yale)
vs Columbia: 15 points (6-13 FG, 3-6 FT), 11 rebounds (six offensive), four steals, two assists
Isabella Mauricio (Brown)
vs Cornell: 22 points (8-12 FG), two steals, one rebound, one assist
Lola Mullaney (Harvard)
vs Penn: 18 points (7-16 FG, 2-3 FT), five rebounds, three steals, one assist
Elena Rodriguez (Harvard)
vs Penn: 17 points (4-8 FG, 8-8 FT), 11 rebounds, five assists