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Senior forward and All-Ivy first-team shoo-in Shonn Miller is being forced to wind down his career with Cornell.
Because the Ivy League prohibits the participation of graduate students and Miller missed last season following shoulder surgery, Miller still has a year of eligibility remaining but cannot use it at Cornell.
It used to always be this simple. Two teams — archrivals head and shoulders above the rest of the league — battle through the long slog of a 14-game tournament, rising above the Other Six to meet in an epic finale. With condolences to the P’s, this season, we return to that reliable formula under the New World Order as, for the second consecutive year, Harvard and Yale enter the final weekend as the only two teams still with a shot at the Ivy title.
Let’s take a look at the key matchups in this winner-take-all grudge match (though Brown and Dartmouth may have a few things to say about that on Saturday):
On Nov. 22, 2014, Harvard defeated Yale in a thriller on the gridiron just a few hundred yards from Lavietes Pavilion. This Friday, Yale will get its chance at revenge – not only for this fall’s loss, but also for losses in 13 of the last 14 football “Games,” as well as for four straight years of Harvard dominance in men’s basketball. However, when the Bulldogs arrive in Cambridge this Friday, they will not be focused on past results; they will have their sights set on the 2015 Ivy League championship. This would be Yale’s first conference title since 2002.
There is also no shortage of motivation on the Harvard side. The Crimson will go for its fifth straight Ivy title. The last a team to do that was Penn (six straight from 1970 to 1975).
Evidently, this is it. The winner of this game will clinch a share of the Ivy title. So the question looms: Harvard or Yale? Who will win Friday’s showdown? Who will hoist the 2015 Ivy League Championship banner? Who’s going dancing? Luckily, I’m here to answer that question. To begin, let’s take a look at a few key matchups:
The winner of Yale-Harvard in Boston Friday night will subsequently be just one further win away from a NCAA tournament berth. Harvard went dancing last year, while Yale hasn’t since 1962. For the Elis to finally get that March Madness monkey off their backs, here’s what they have to do:
Check out our archive of the latest On the Vine podcast, in which Ivy League Associate Executive Director Scottie Rodgers and Big Apple Buckets Editor-in-Chief John Templon join Peter Andrews & Mike Tony to cover the latest Ivy action. Segments include reflections on what went wrong for Harvard at Cornell, momentum in favor of having an Ivy conference tournament, postseason (and potential playoff) previews and predictions on who will prevail in this weekend’s Yale-Harvard matchup:
There has been much talk in the past several years, particularly this season, about how much or little support Penn Athletics has received from the university.
It must be noted that the problem for Penn Athletics isn’t the inability to spend. According to data from the Office of Postsecondary Education, Penn’s annual expenses since 2004 – the start of Amy Gutmann’s presidency at Penn – average out to 30,644,364, the highest average in expenses in the Ivy League in that span:
Average Annual Athletics Expenses Since 2004
One of the most august positions in world economics is held by Penn’s founder, Benjamin Franklin. This is because besides being the consummate Penn Man —philosopher, humorist, inventor, publisher, Ambassador to France, politician, author, scientist and, of course, whoremaster — Big Ben’s portrait graces the front of the $100 bill. As the Ivy basketball season winds down with Pennsylvania”s once equally august hoops program firmly in the cellar, Penn President Amy Gutmann should reach into her $9.6 billion endowment, pull out a hundy, and take note.
Princeton 80, Brown 62
The visiting Tigers jumped out to a 12-2 advantage and never looked back, leading by 26 at one point and outplaying the Bears in every facet of the game. Steven Cook’s 15 points and seven boards set the pace for Princeton, as did 12-point efforts from Henry Caruso and Amir Bell. The Tigers are now just a game under .500 at 13-14 and still claim a distant third place in the Ivy standings. Tavon Blackmon curiously logged just five minutes despite no fouls and no obvious injuries. Nothing makes sense for Brown fans anymore.
Dartmouth 56, Cornell 45
Robert Hatter exploded for 23 points for the Big Red but the Big Green won the battle of the Bigs behind 41 combined points from Alex Mitola, Gabas Maldunas and Malik Gill off the bench. Dartmouth shot 7-for-15 from beyond the arc and wondered what Harvard found so hard about completing the Empire State sweep.
Yale 55, Penn 50
Things got real interesting in New Haven. The Quakers led for the first 37:41 of the game but couldn’t hang on late, with Justin Sears overcoming seven turnovers to notch a crucial block and three-point play in the game’s final minute. The Bulldogs get to 10-2 in Ivy play and will travel to Harvard next Friday for the game of the year. Javier Duren posted 19 points but shot just 4-for-15 from the field and was outshone by Antonio Woods, who scored 14 and added six assists in a losing effort. True to form, Jack Montague nailed two clutch threes down the stretch and finished with 11 points of his own.
Harvard 80, Columbia 70
And it’s the game of the year largely because Harvard won too, also climbing to 10-2 to keep pace with Yale atop the conference standings. Wesley Saunders posted 21 points, including 11 free throws, to lead the way for the Crimson, and Steve Moundou-Missi added 17 on 8-for-11 shooting. Host Columbia shot north of 53 percent for the second time against Harvard this season, but it came up with a second loss because the Lions just couldn’t get anyone going outside of Maodo Lo, whose 33-point, five-steal performance just wasn’t quite enough, even as the Lions cut Harvard’s lead to 48-44 with 11:54 remaining. The Lions have depth issues, but they do have Alex Rosenberg and Grant Mullins coming back – next season.
This was coming.
After Harvard edged Yale 52-50 in New Haven, needed a game-winning Siyani Chambers jumper to survive a second-half offensive drought against Columbia and struggled early against Princeton, it was clear the Crimson needed to shore up their offense.
But it makes sense that that wouldn’t happen against a Cornell defense whose calling cards are its physicality and length. Wesley Saunders and Siyani Chambers combined to shoot just 9-for-31 as the Crimson struggled to establish any offensive rhythm whatsoever in a 57-49 loss to the Big Red that dropped Harvard to a 9-2 Ivy mark and first-place tie with Yale atop the league standings.
Harvard shot a paltry 25 percent from the field as a team, out-Cornelling Cornell in the process.
Now Harvard heads to Levien Gym, where it needed overtime to pull out a controversial 88-84 victory last season and lost 78-63 the year before. Will the Crimson go winless on the Empire State trip? We’re about to find out.
The Princeton brand took another body blow last night in New Haven, rekindling memories of the shocking collapse two seasons ago. At that time, the Tigers entered the final full weekend of the year needing a sweep to clinch another Ivy title or just one win to force a playoff with eventual winner Harvard. A shocking upset Friday night at Yale, followed by a listless walk-through at Brown the next night, sent the Tigers home with its season in tatters. That team voted to stay home in the postseason, turning down overtures from the CBI and CIT.
The stakes were not nearly as high this year as the Tigers embarked on the annual dogsled trip to New Haven and Providence. The young Tigers were aiming to leave a calling card at Payne Whitney, showing coach James Jones and the Bulldogs what they might have to face in the years to come.
If, in fact, that is what happened, you could not blame Jones if he let loose with a few guffaws after the dud Mitch Henderson lobbed his way.