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Ivy women’s week 10 roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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Heading into the last two days of the regular season, Columbia and Princeton were tied for first, while Penn held a one-game lead over Harvard for third place.  After the Lions, Tigers and Crimson each grabbed a win, the Ivy League Tournament semifinal matchups of Columbia against Harvard and Princeton versus Penn had been set.  What needed to be determined was the seeding of the four teams and the timing of the two matchups.

When the updated NCAA NET rankings were posted on Sunday morning, Princeton’s convincing road victory over upper division Penn combined with Columbia’s narrow escape at home against seventh-place Cornell resulted in the Tigers overcoming an 11-position difference from last week and taking the No. 1 seed away from the Lions.

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Ivy men’s week 10 roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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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. 

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Ivy women’s week nine roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top 10

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The conference’s next-to-last weekend began on Friday night with a nationally televised game between Princeton and Harvard, two of the four teams headed to the Ivy Tournament.  The last time they met in January, the Crimson came away with a 67-59 victory, ending the Tigers’ 42-game Ivy League win streak.

Playing in front of more than 1,700 fans at Jadwin Gymnasium, Harvard took a 14-12 lead after the first quarter.  The visitors used a late 13-2 run to open up a 12-point lead before Princeton cut it to 10, 30-20, at the half.

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Princeton men’s basketball survives after another second-half collapse

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Despite another stupefying second-half collapse, the Princeton men’s basketball team somehow hung on to defeat the Harvard Crimson at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday, 58-56.  With the win, the Tigers retained a share of first place in the conference standings and guaranteed themselves an opportunity to earn at least a share of the Ivy League title with a win on senior night at Jadwin Gym next Saturday against the Penn Quakers in the regular season finale for both teams.

The Tigers gutted out this hugely important road win despite a harrowing stretch of offensive futility that echoed Princeton’s epic second-half collapse against Yale last weekend.  

Senior guard Ryan Langborg led the Tigers with 18 points and six rebounds while Evan Nelson led Harvard in scoring with 19 points in a losing cause. Chris Ledlum, playing his final game at Lavietes, was held to 14 points (five below his average), but muscled his way to a game-high 11 rebounds for the Crimson, who were eliminated from Ivy Madness on Senior Night by Princeton for the second year in a row.

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Ivy women’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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Following Saturday afternoon’s action, the upper division pulled away from the bottom half, while the Brown rebuild took a positive step forward.

Columbia bounced back from a disappointing result against Princeton by taking it out on Yale in front of 1,485 fans at Levien Gymnasium.  The Lions jumped out to a 32-17 halftime lead on the strength of a 14-0 second quarter run.  The Light Blue made it a 20-point game after three and widen it to a game-high 28 points with just under four minutes to go in the contest.  Defensively, they limited the Bulldogs to 32% shooting and only 49 points, the first time they held an Ivy opponent under 50 this season.

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Ivy men’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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Week seven for the Ancient Eight saw Yale avenge its shocking opening day loss at Columbia and move into a tie at the top of the conference leaderboard.  After a close half that saw the Bulldogs holding onto a slim 31-26 lead, the Bulldogs outscored the last-place Lions 58-32 for the dominant 31-point win.  Yale, winners of six straight, had 13 different players in the scoring column and shot 65% from the field. 

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men completing season sweep of Harvard

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Penn senior swingman Lucas Monroe finished just one point shy of a second straight double-double in an 80-72 win at Harvard Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn took a huge step towards securing a berth in Ivy Madness on Saturday with a nearly wire-to-wire 80-72 win over Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.

Though the Quakers (14-11, 6-4 Ivy) led the game for 38:59, there were some nervous moments in the second half, as careless turnovers and a scoring drought that spanned 5:51 of game time let the Crimson (12-12, 3-7) close their deficit to as little as three points with 3:37 to go.

Penn only made one field goal in the game’s final 10 minutes — a corner three from sophomore guard George Smith — and relied on 20-23 free throw shooting in the final 3:18 to keep Harvard at bay. Smith hit five three throws in that span, as did senior swingman Lucas Monroe.

The Red and Blue pretty much stuck the dagger in Harvard’s playoff hopes with the victory; Harvard now sits alone in seventh place in the Ivy standings, three full games out of playoff position.

Meanwhile, Penn sits just a game out of first place in the league and controls its own destiny for at least a share of the Ivy crown.

That tantalizing possibility is one of many things Penn fans can chew over from an uplifting win, such as the fact that …

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Penn women take revenge on Harvard, 70-64

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Passion! Great performances! Revenge! You could enjoy them all on the radio — the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday broadcast had “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci” — or you could find them at the Palestra in West Philly, where the Penn women took down Harvard, 70-64.

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Yale men hold off Harvard to sweep season series again

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Junior forward Matt Knowling led all scorers with 18 points on 9-for-13 shooting in 35 minutes in Yale’s win over Harvard Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Yale men’s basketball picked up where its scorching hot hands left off last Saturday against Princeton, building a 19-point second-half lead and surviving a late comeback rush from Harvard to notch a 68-57 win at Lavietes Pavilion.

Harvard (12-10, 3-5 Ivy) had trailed 48-29 with 16:25 remaining but in the next 14 minutes of game seized enough momentum to trail by just five points, 62-57. Yale salted away the game from the free-throw line in the final minute after a defensive clampdown.

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s critical 83-68 win over Harvard

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Junior guard Jordan Dingle notched his third straight KenPom Game MVP award with a 27-point performance that included a 4-for-8 showing from three-point range in Penn’s win over Harvard at the Palestra Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PHILADELPHIA — Penn men’s basketball picked up a potentially season-saving win in style on Saturday at the Palestra, dominating Harvard, 83-68.

The Quakers (11-11, 3-4 Ivy) never trailed en route to their third straight win over the Crimson (12-9, 3-4). They scored 1.19 points per possession, according to KenPom. That marked Penn’s most efficient offensive performance so far in Ivy play.

Junior Jordan Dingle once again dominated Harvard. With Crimson star Noah Kirkwood no longer around to defend Dingle, the guard established his shot early on with a quick eight points in the game’s first five minutes. Dingle finished with 27 points on the afternoon on 18 shots and earned his third straight ‘game MVP’ designation from KenPom.

Dingle’s excellence set the Quakers up to run perhaps their most aesthetically pleasing offensive game plan of the season, one of many happy Quakeaways on the day.

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