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Letdown? One could have happened.
After all, Yale clinched an Ivy title last night in a scintillating tilt.
But letdowns aren’t a thing with James Jones-coached teams. The Bulldogs destroyed Columbia, 90-64, at John J. Lee Amphitheater on Senior Night Saturday.
“I keep being surprised, but in awe of this group,” said Jones. “We scored 90 points and gave up 64. I just think we could be perfect.”
Two minutes defined a season so far for the Columbia Lions. And for the Princeton Tigers.
The Brown men’s basketball team combined unselfish offensive play with a strong defensive effort to cruise to an easy 86-61 victory over Columbia in a Friday evening tussle at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
The victory avenges a 74-72 loss at Levien Gymnasium on February 8.
Since that defeat, Mike Martin’s Bears (13-10, 5-5 Ivy) have won three in a row and moved into a tie for fourth place with Cornell.
While Bruno continues its drive towards its second consecutive appearance in the Ivy League Tournament, Jim Engles’ Lions (12-11, 1-9), which have suffered defeats in three straight games and 10 of their last 11, has officially been eliminated from the postseason.
Sole possession of first place in the Ivy League is on the line Saturday night when the Columbia Lions’ women’s basketball team travels to central New Jersey to face their biggest rival, the Princeton Tigers, at Jadwin Gymnasium. The game tips off at 5:30 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN+.
The clash provides Columbia (18-5, 9-1 Ivy) with an opportunity to regain control of the Ivy League regular season title chase after the Lions dropped a hard-fought battle to Harvard last week, 60-54, at Levien Gymnasium in Morningside Heights.
Princeton (18-5, 9-1) can also seize control of the Ivy race with a win and close out its home schedule on Saturday with a 12-0 record. The Tigers are currently riding a 30-game home-court winning streak, the longest such streak in the nation.
Who was the last team to defeat Princeton at home? You guessed it, the Columbia Lions. On Jan. 6, 2023, Megan Griffith’s squad strode into Jadwin Gym and took down the Tigers, 58-55, in an overtime thriller.
Rebounding from a home loss to Columbia on national television 17 days ago, Harvard women’s basketball used its pressure defense and a big fourth-quarter run to take round two at Levien Gymnasium, 60-54, in front of a raucous sellout crowd and ESPNU audience.
“I’m just really proud of our team … We were obviously disappointed with what we were able to do in that last game. You saw more of who we are in this game,” Harvard coach Carrie Moore said. “This team being able to take a punch, and then give a punch, and take another punch and punch back. We just really showed our growth and maturity.”
Harvard (19-3, 8-2 Ivy), which beat Cornell by 37 points on Friday night and exorcised the demons of its lackluster performance against the Big Red 16 days earlier, remains in third place but now sits only one game out of first place.
While Columbia (18-5, 9-1) clinched a spot in the Ivy League Tournament with its 89-37 victory over Dartmouth on Friday night, Sunday’s defeat moved the team into a tie with Princeton and ended several impressive streaks for the program: 11 straight games, 19 consecutive conference games and 20 regular season home contests.
“I thought they (Harvard) were just the better team today,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith said.
Behind a career high 31-point performance from sophomore forward Thomas Batties II, the Harvard men cruised to an 87-75 victory over visiting Columbia at Lavietes Pavilion on Saturday night.
The win gave head coach Tommy Amaker his 301st as head coach at Cambridge and, coupled with a 75-73 triumph over Cornell on Friday night, a weekend sweep of the Empire State Ivies. The Crimson (9-13, 4-5 Ivy) finish the weekend where it started, in fifth place in the conference, only one game out of the running for the Ivy Tournament.
The Lions (12-10, 1-8), which lost to Dartmouth by 22 points the previous evening, have been in the loss column for nine of its last ten contests, including five of six since leading scorer Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa went down to an injury. Jim Engles’ squad heads back to New York City in sole possession of last place.
HANOVER, N.H. – It’s not often that Dartmouth has played the role of the hunted in the Ivy League in the last few decades. But they certainly looked the part Friday night at Leede Arena, beating Columbia in dominant fashion, 78-56.
With fewer than five weeks to go before Selection Sunday, coaches, players and the soothsayers known as bracketologists are beginning to focus their attention on which teams might gain a coveted berth to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Three teams in the Ivy League realistically are in contention for the 68 invitations that will be spread among the 362 Division I teams this year: Columbia, Harvard and Princeton.
One of these three teams is very likely to earn the automatic qualification slotted for the team that wins the Ivy League Tournament in Providence on March 15. For the past five years in which Ivy teams have competed (COVID resulted in no Ivy League postseason play in in 2020 and 2021), Princeton has secured the automatic bid by winning the Ivy League Tournament.
With seven conference games in the books for every Ivy League women’s basketball team, the race for the regular season conference title has reached the halfway mark.
The three teams picked in the preseason to contend for an Ivy League title – Princeton, Columbia and Harvard – have lived up to their billing, racking up big wins in the nonconference season and largely dominating the other five Ivy teams in league play.
Here’s where each of the big three stands as we head into the final five weeks of the Ivy League regular season: