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What a difference a week can make.
Yale men’s basketball suffered a surprising 16-point defeat at Jadwin nine days ago. But after manhandling Columbia 91-74 Monday at John J. Lee Amphitheater on the heels of a Saturday crushing of Cornell, Yale once again looks like the cream of the Ivy League crop.
Penn men’s basketball fell just a few inches short of holding onto a share of first place in the Ivy League standings Monday after it took a tough road loss to Harvard, 64-63.
The Quakers (9-8, 2-2 Ivy) rallied back after giving up an 11-0 run that spanned the end of the first half and the beginning of the second to take multiple leads.
The Crimson (10-8, 3-1) seized back momentum after their star sophomore, Robert Hinton, delivered a highlight-reel, and-one dunk over Quakers big man Augustus Gerhart with 5:31 to play. Penn rallied back to tie the game twice after Hinton’s one-handed flush thanks to the efforts of sophomore point guard AJ Levine, but surrendered baskets at the rim to Harvard on five straight possessions in the game’s final three minutes.
Despite that interior defensive collapse, the Quakers had two long-shot chances to tie or win the game in the final two seconds. But Levine was unable to intentionally miss a free throw with 1.9 seconds left and Penn down two. Harvard missed the front end of a one-and-one after Levine’s unintentional make, but TJ Power’s desperation heave came up short.
There’s nothing wrong with splitting two games on a tough road trip, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Penn let a big opportunity slip through its fingers.
What did fans learn from a tough afternoon?
Penn men’s basketball picked up a critical victory in its first extended road trip of Ivy League play on Saturday, taking advantage of a spectacular second half to down Dartmouth, the last unbeaten team in the league standings, 84-74.
The Quakers (9-7, 2-1 Ivy) overcame a string of early self-imposed issues thanks to dominant halves from their two best players. Ethan Roberts carried the team in the first half while TJ Power was confined to the bench with foul trouble; Power scored nine points in the 12-0 run early in the second stanza which gave the Quakers the lead for the rest of the afternoon.
Power lived up to his last name during that decisive run. He started it off by dribbling into a wide-open three, then gave the Quakers the lead with a spinning drive on Dartmouth (8-8, 2-1) wing Jayden Williams. No one the Big Green threw at Power could handle the 6-foot-9 junior.
Suddenly, the Ivy season looks wide-open for the Quakers, who are now in a five-way tie for the league lead. Monday’s matchup with fellow 2-1 team Harvard looms as a massive opportunity.
What did Penn fans learn from a happy start to the long weekend?
In a physical battle that featured 17 lead changes and 15 ties over 45 minutes, Brown men’s basketball opened up its largest lead of the game in the extra session and held on for an 86-80 victory over Columbia at the Pizzitola Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.
Mike Martin’s Bears (7-8, 1-2 Ivy League) picked up their first conference win in three tries, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions (12-5, 1-2) dropped their second straight Ancient Eight contest.
“Really, really pleased,” Martin told the ESPN+/NESN broadcast team after the game. “That was a hard, hard-fought game. They’re (Columbia) a heck of a team.”
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – After two losses at home to start the Ivy League campaign, it was time for some soul-searching for the Cornell men’s basketball team, as the Big Red look to qualify for their fifth straight Ivy Madness, this time on their home floor.
There’s no place like home.
Playing in the friendly confines of Jadwin Gymnasium for the first time in 2026, the No. 22 Princeton women’s basketball team (15-1, 3-0 Ivy) raced past the Dartmouth Big Green, 69-41, to remain unbeaten in Ivy play Saturday.
Taking the court with a depleted roster, the Tigers led wire-to-wire for the second straight game and were never seriously challenged by the Big Green.
Princeton was led by its junior tandem of guards, Ashley Chea and Skye Belker. Chea led all scorers with 16 points on 5-for-13 shooting, while Belker chipped in 14 points, two rebounds, two assists and three steals.
Though the Tigers didn’t paint a masterpiece today, they nevertheless prevailed for the 16th straight time over Dartmouth at Jadwin, a streak that dates all the way back to the 2008-09 season.
Here are three Tiger Takeaways from Princeton’s 13th consecutive win, their longest winning streak since the 2023-24 season:
Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps an 87-80 loss in overtime for Princeton men’s basketball (6-12, 2-1 Ivy) at Harvard (9-8, 2-1) Saturday:
The Penn women’s basketball visit to Brown didn’t figure on being easy for either team. After all, they spent the past two seasons clawing at each other for the fourth slot in the Ivy League Tournament, with Penn claiming the honor both times.
What they produced Saturday was a classic, a double-overtime win for the Bears that looked easy at the start and easy at the finish but was brilliant and exhausting basketball in between. If this is the sort of thing we can expect for the rest of the season, we’ll have a lot of exciting games to watch, and both Brown and Penn will go to the tournament in March.
Harvard men’s basketball jumped out to an 11-2 lead before the first media timeout and never looked back, as the Crimson notched a 79-54 wire-to-wire win over Columbia at Levien Gymnasium Saturday afternoon.
“I thought it was a tremendous effort from start to finish from our guys,” coach Tommy Amaker told Harvard Athletics. “It really was defensively. We had energy. We got the stops. We were able to get out and play from ahead. We were able to play a fun style early, which makes you get confidence quickly. On the road, that is so critical.”
Amaker’s squad improved to 1-1 in Ivy play and 8-8 on the season, while Kevin Hovde’s Lions, which lost their first home game of the 2025-26 campaign, dropped to 1-1 in the Ancient Eight and 12-4 for the year.
The No. 24 Princeton women’s basketball team steamrolled to its 12th consecutive win on Saturday afternoon, collaring the Yale Bulldogs, 76-50, at John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven.