A wild Saturday capped the regular season for the Ancient Eight. When the dust settled, Yale and Princeton tied for the league title, while Penn settled for third place and Cornell captured the final spot for this weekend’s Ivy League Tournament at Jadwin Gymnasium.
In what was arguably the conference game of the year, it was the worst of times in the opening half and the best of times in the second stanza for the hometown Tigers.
Despite an otherworldly 21-point first half performance from Penn’s Jordan Dingle that gave the Quakers a 17-point lead at the break, Princeton chipped away at the lead and finished the game on a 22-5 run that gave the Tigers the overtime win.
With the victory, the Tigers and their fans exorcised the demons from the recent second half and overtime collapse against Yale two weeks earlier and claimed at least a share of their second straight regular season championship.
Penn, which had won its last eight games, had their championship dreams dashed and ended up in third place for the second consecutive season.
The Orange & Black would have to wait for the evening to see if Brown could defeat the Bulldogs and give them an outright title.
For the Quakers and their faithful, the eighth straight loss (and 18th in the last 21 contests) to their archrivals was an epic collapse that brought to mind the infamous “Black Tuesday” game, as well as several options in Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing guide. (I’m looking at Level XV: The Achilles’ Heel, Level XI: Dead Man Walking, Level X: The Monkey Wrench, Level IV: The Guillotine, or Level III: The Stomach Punch.)
George covered the game from the Tigers’ perspective, while Ian summed up the Quakers’ day.
Cornell, which entered the day in fifth place and one game out of the last Ivy Tournament spot, welcomed last place Columbia to Newman Arena on Saturday afternoon. To get their second straight and third all-time Ivy Madness bid, the Big Red would need a win over the Lions and some help from Yale against Brown in the league finale that evening.
The Red jumped out to a 40-18 with four minutes left in the opening half, but the Lions used their own 16-0 run to make it a six-point game at the intermission. Columbia got the opening bucket of the second half, but Cornell scored the next 11 to make it a 56-41 contest. The Lions never got closer than 14 the rest of the way.
The Lions, which lost their 12th game in their last 13 contests, were successful on 59% of their shots from inside the arc and 36% from the outside, but the Big Red, which had lost five of their previous six games, shot 72% from two and 37% from three.
Up in Hanover, Dartmouth and Harvard met in the league’s only game that didn’t have any Ivy Madness implications.
The two teams played it close, with the score knotted at 54 at the 11:51 mark of the second half. Up 66-63 with 6:46 on the clock, the Big Green went on a 12-3 run over the next three minutes to make it a 12-point lead.
The hosts were still up 12, 82-70, with 90 seconds remaining, but the Crimson battled back to make it an 85-82 game with six seconds left. They wouldn’t get any closer as Cam Krystkowiak sank two free throws in his final appearance to give Dartmouth the Senior Day victory.
The win was Dartmouth’s third straight over Harvard and its first season sweep of the Crimson since the 1998-99 season. Their six total league wins give them back-to-back seasons with six or more wins since the 1995-96 and 1996-97 campaigns.
While Harvard finished with a record at, or over, .500 for the 13th time in its last 14 seasons, this marks another injury-plagued year for the program and its second straight lower-division position.
In front of a packed and frenzied crowd in the Pizzitola Sports Center, Brown aimed for a win against Yale to secure its first visit to the Ivy Tournament, while Yale looked to claim a co-championship with Princeton and a top seed at Ivy Madness.
With Brown up 43-40 in the second half, a 18-3 run by the Bulldogs made it 58-46 with 9:31 to go and put a damper on the crowd’s enthusiasm.
The Bears had one more charge left but could get no closer than 62-57 at the six-minute mark.
Yale earned its third regular season title in the last four seasons, fifth since 2015 and sixth under coach James Jones. Brown, meanwhile, lost its eighth game in a row against their travel partner and finished in a fourth-place tie for the third time in the six years of the Ivy tournament era.
Since Bruno and Cornell swept their season series, the Big Red got the No. 4 seed in the upcoming tournament due to a better record against Yale (1-1 vs 0-2).
Richard documented another banner-clinching performance from the Bulldogs.
Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend’s final games:
Dame Adelekun (Dartmouth)
vs Harvard: 19 points (8-10 2FG, 0-2 3FG, 2-4 FT), eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks; KenPom Game MVP
Jordan Dingle (Penn)
vs Princeton: 28 points (5-12 2FG, 4-13 3FG, 6-6 FT), four rebounds, two assists, one steal; KenPom Game MVP
Greg Dolan (Cornell)
vs Columbia: 17 points (7-10 2FG, 1-2 3FG, 0-2 FT), four rebounds, three assists, two steals
Tosan Evbuomwan (Princeton)
vs Penn: 15 points (6-11 2FG, 1-1 3FG), seven rebounds, six assists, three steals, one block
Sean Hansen (Cornell)
vs Columbia: 10 points (3-4 2FG, 1-5 3FG, 1-2 FT), seven rebounds, six assists, four steals, one block; KenPom Game MVP
Bez Mbeng (Yale) Ivy League Player of the Week
vs Brown: 27 points (8-9 2FG, 2-3 3FG, 5-9 FT), four rebounds, one assist, one steal; KenPom Game MVP
Evan Nelson (Harvard)
vs Dartmouth: 19 points (5-6 2FG, 3-5 3FG, 0-0 FT), six assists, five rebounds, three steals
Caden Pierce (Princeton)
vs Penn: 17 points (3-6 2FG, 3-10 3FG, 2-2 FT), 10 rebounds (four offensive), one assist, one block
Paxson Wojcik (Brown)
vs Yale: 25 points (7-9 2FG, 2-7 3FG, 5-7 FT), eight rebounds, four assists, three steals
Danny Wolf (Yale)
vs Brown: 8 points (2-2 FG, 1-3 3FG, 1-2 FT), five rebounds in 10 minutes off the bench
Saturday, March 4
Princeton over Penn, 77-69 (OT)
Cornell over Columbia, 87-73
Dartmouth over Harvard, 87-82
Yale over Brown, 84-75
Final Regular Season Standings
*^Yale 10-4 (20-7, overall)
*Princeton 10-4 (19-8)
*Penn 9-5 (17-12)
*&Cornell 7-7 (17-10)
Brown 7-7 (14-13)
Dartmouth 6-8 (10-18)
Harvard 5-9 (14-14)
Columbia 2-12 (7-22)
* Clinched spot in Ivy Tournament
^ Clinched #1 seed due to sweep of season series
& Clinched #4 seed due to better record against #1 seed
Ivy Tournament – at Jadwin Gymnasium (Princeton)
Friday, March 10: Press Conferences and Shootarounds (available on ESPN+)
No. 1 Yale: Press Conference at 10 a.m., Shootaround at 10:30 a.m.
No. 4 Cornell: Press Conference at 11 a.m., Shootaround at 11:30 a.m.
No. 2 Princeton: Press Conference at 12 p.m., Shootaround at 12:30 p.m.
No. 3 Penn: Press Conference at 1 p.m., Shootaround at 1:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 11: Semifinals
No. 1 Yale vs No. 4 Cornell at 11 a.m. (available on ESPNU and ESPN+)
No. 2 Princeton vs No. 3 Penn at 1:30 p.m. or 30 minutes following previous game, whichever is later (available on ESPNU or ESPN+)
Sunday, March 12: Final
Ivy Madness Pre-Show at 11:30 a.m. (available on ESPN+)
Winner of semifinal No. 1 vs Winner of semifinal No. 2 at 12:00 p.m. (available on ESPN2 or ESPN+)
We’ll preview next weekend’s games in a later article.