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Ivy Friday Roundup

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Harvard 72, Columbia 68

All season long, Ivy pundits (including myself) questioned the Crimson’s ability to rely on outside shooting to win tight games down the stretch. So it’s ironic that Harvard dismissed that doubt – if just for tonight – against one of the most potent three-point shooting teams in the league, Columbia. Wesley Saunders and Siyani Chambers combined to go 6-for-10 from beyond the arc, and Corbin Miller went 2-for-5 as well for a healthy 40 percent clip. The Lions overcame a 48-31 halftime deficit to tie Harvard at 68-68 with eight second left with a Jeff Coby trey, but Siyani Chambers responded with the game-winning jumper, an indication that he may be ready to shake off the slump he’s been working through all season. This is Harvard wins – it teases us, it allows big runs, it struggles with lineup groupings. But it always comes through in the big games.

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IHO Power Rankings – Feb. 10

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1. Harvard (5-1)

Harvard’s still the class of the conference. The Crimson held Yale to 11 points in the entire first half at Payne Whitney Gym to tie Yale atop the Ivy standings at 5-1 in league play. Wesley Saunders’ career-high 33 points did Brown in in overtime the night before. Reports of the Crimson’s demise were clearly premature. Harvard hosts Columbia and Cornell at home, two more solid defensive squads that will not be easy outs at Lavietes. The thing about Harvard is that the Crimson win the close ones – they’re 8-1 in overtime games since 2010. I have a feeling that that stat will be coming into play at least one more time down the stretch.

2. Yale (5-1)

The Bulldogs responded to the biggest game for their program in quite some time by going 3-for-22 in the first half. Harvard’s defense is awesome, but the Elis were visibly a little tense in the early going too. Still, Yale is 5-1 and tied for the conference lead with its greatest rival and another shot at that rival at Lavietes, the same place Yale trumped Harvard last season. All is not lost for the Elis, but it was disconcerting to see them abandon Justin Sears in the second half.

More importantly, the Whiffenpoofs are full steam ahead.

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IHO Power Poll – Feb. 2

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Ben Franklin AQIt is I, The AQ. This week I am guest hosting the IHO Power Rankings. For the purists out there, after the first back-to-back Ivy weekend, the rankings should probably look something like this:

Yale
Harvard
Princeton
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Pennsylvania
Brown

Normally, this list is dutifully accompanied by the earnest commentary and incisive statistical analysis that you’ve come to know and love from IHO. An introspection of our favorite teams that is indeed worthy of our elite educations.

For those of you expecting this, my apologies in advance. This week, since it is still early in the 14-Game Tournament and because there were no real surprises in the games last weekend, I thought it was the perfect time to switch things up a bit. (After all, you have the whole month of February to get your ORAT freak on.) Instead, I’ve decided to rank the teams as I see them which of course has nothing to do with reality. So without further ado, here is The AQ’s “Special” IHO Power Rankings for February 1, 2015.

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2014-15 Ivy conference play preview

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Noah Savage (@yoitsthesav), comedian, broadcaster and color commentator for the Princeton men’s basketball team, previews the conference slate and how the Ivies stack up halfway through the first full Ivy weekend of 2014-15:

The men’s Ivy League basketball teams are already half way through their schedule and you haven’t paid any attention at all. But don’t worry. There’s still time to catch up since the preconference schedule is almost completely irrelevant in the Ivy League where the regular season champion receives a bid to the NCAA tournament.  Now that we’re still just halfway through the first full Ivy weekend of the season, here’s a quick cheat sheet for each team – plus a few of my own predictions – to help you catch up:

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The five biggest Ivy upsets of the season

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Does what it says in the headline…
1.Yale 45, UConn 44- Yale was up most of the game at Gampel and it took a three from the corner by Jack Montague with 1.7 seconds remaining to seal the victory over the defending national champions.
2.Brown 77, Providence 67- This was a beatdown against a very good Providence team who could see the postseason. Brown was 12-for-13 from the free throw line to close out the game.
3.Penn 56, St. Joe’s 52-This is a bad Penn team, no doubt about that. But when Tony Hicks is playing well, the Quakers can compete with decent teams. Hicks notched 13 of his 15 points in the second half of a game in which Penn led for 29 minutes.
4.Brown 70, Saint Peter’s 58- This was a Saint Peter’s team which beat Rutgers, and Brown thoroughly outplayed them. Now former Bear Leland King had 16 points.
5.Cornell 68, George Mason 60- Sure, George Mason is no power, but this game was played on the road in November and few knew if Cornell was going to duplicate its inept effort of last season. Shonn Miller and Robert Hatter both posted 21 points.

Ivy Hoops Online Writers/Readers’ Power Poll

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After polling Ivy Hoops Online’s writers and longtime readers before the Ivy season tipped off Saturday, here’s IHO’s official power ranking:

  1. Harvard
  2. Yale
  3. Columbia
  4. Princeton
  5. Brown
  6. Cornell
  7. Dartmouth
  8. Penn

Harvard and Yale were the near unanimous picks to finish Nos. 1 and 2 respectively, although Yale did garner three No. 1 votes. Columbia obviously prevailed at No. 3 but got significant competition for that spot from Princeton. Brown never finished higher than fourth in any ranking and even fell to seventh in two rankings. A third of our poll participants selected Cornell to finish in the top half of the league while 40 percent of our participants picked the Big Red to finish in the bottom two spots, making Cornell the team with the most range in our rankings. In what is perhaps the most damning stat of all, the only four people who picked Penn to finish higher than last are Penn alums/students.

So … two-team race. Got it.

Penn lost more than Princeton won, but the Tigers will take it

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Henry Caruso notched a career-high 23 points to lead the Tigers past Penn. (goprincetontigers.com)
Henry Caruso notched a career-high 23 points to lead the Tigers past Penn. (goprincetontigers.com)

Last night’s renewal of the storied rivalry between the Tigers and Quakers was, in some respects, typical of the more memorable contests in a series which contains more than 200 editions. We saw an intense physical battle in which most every shot was bitterly contested and we saw one team overcome a huge second-half deficit to achieve an improbable win. But this game was lost by Penn, not won by the Tigers.

To the chagrin of the partisans of both squads this game established beyond much, if any, lingering doubt that neither belongs among the league’s elite quintets. I am sure that Mitch Henderson and his staff enjoyed the come-from-behind win over the Quakers for only a little while before the sobering reality of the game hit home. The Tigers struggled at home to beat a team whose lone “quality” win came at the expense of Navy. The Quakers managed to squander a late 15-point lead by some of the sloppiest play since Dartmouth threw away a seven-point lead in the last two minutes of regulation at Harvard last year resulting in an overtime loss.

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Ranking all eight official Ivy team websites

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When is a website not just a website?

When it’s a NCAA college athletics department’s official website.

Think about it. If you’re a high school recruit checking out a college school athletics scene for the first time, that website better be easy to navigate. What is this team’s history? How do I fill out their recruiting questionnaire? Do they have summer basketball camps? Does their athletics staff know how to craft an aesthetically pleasing website? (If it’s Cornell, the answer to the latter question is no.)

And you know what? The same questions apply to Ivy hoops bloggers! Certainly, when I was a sportswriter at The Daily Pennsylvanian, I checked out the official Ivy team websites every day and got used to their quirks and designs. In fact, when Penn Athletics updated its site in 2013, it made me appreciate the work that goes into streamlining these webpages, updating the information that needs to be routinely updated for recruits, alumni, journalists and students alike.

The thing is, some Ivies have better websites than others. The Ancient Eight official men’s basketball webpages, ranked:

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What's your Ivy team's New Year's resolution?

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New YearIt’s New Year’s Eve, and that means New Year’s resolutions abound. If the Ivies could have one doable New Year’s resolution each, here’s what they would be, along with the likelihood of each team making good on that resolution (Ivy power rankings included).

8. Penn (3-7) – Get the freshmen substantially more minutes

Sam Jones is averaging 6.1 points in just 15.1 minutes per game so far this season and has proven himself to be the kind of sharpshooting threat Penn has been missing for a long time, shooting an eye-popping 45.9 percent from beyond the arc. Yet Jones logged just 10 minutes at La Salle last night. He must be in coach Jerome Allen’s doghouse, but he has to play more regardless.

Meanwhile, now that Mike Auger’s back from a foot injury, he has to play more too. He’s just seventh on the team in minutes per game despite being second in rebounds and third in points per contest. Freshman guard Antonio Woods is actually logging more minutes than anybody due to junior guard Tony Hicks’ chronic foul trouble, but he’s just one of many frosh that will have to pick up the slack if Penn is to make a run at the top half of the conference.

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Breaking down why Harvard is still the class of the Ivy League

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As a Harvard optimist, I was unfazed by the Crimson’s lackluster performance against Virginia on Dec. 21. I concede that Harvard is not on the Cavaliers’ level. This past Sunday, the Crimson needed a strong bounce-back performance versus a more suitable opponent, Arizona State, but once again, Harvard could not establish the upper hand in a 56-46 loss to a tough Sun Devils team. Three obvious takeaways from this game are:

  • Harvard’s defense continues to be top-notch.
  • Harvard’s offense continues to sputter.
  • Playing away from its home court at Lavietes Pavilion is tough for the Crimson.

So the real question is, can Harvard escape the Ivy League gauntlet with a stingy defense and an offense that’s weaker than last year’s? To examine this question, I decided to take a closer look at how Harvard and the other Ivy League teams have fared against “Ivy League-caliber” competition.

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