Kenny Noland

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s home sweep of Columbia and Cornell

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Penn has a clear path to an Ivy Madness berth after pulling off one of its best Palestra homestands in years.

The Quakers (13-10, 6-4 Ivy) have a tight grip on third place in the League standings after using a late surge to rally past Columbia on Friday, 76-67, and following that effort up with an 82-76 triumph over Cornell in a game that was played within a possession for much of the evening.

Penn, by virtue of its head-to-head sweep over Cornell (12-11, 5-5), is effectively two games ahead of the Big Red with four to play. If the Quakers just go .500 in their remaining contests, they’ll be two steps away from their first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2018.

It’s a position that few outside observers expected Penn to be in, given its opening KenPom ranking of 275 and consensus seventh-place pick in the Ivy preseason poll.

But now? The Quakers look like an ascending team in its first year under Fran McCaffery, who has taken a team which consists almost entirely of players he did not recruit and turned it into one of the most improved teams in the country.

How much so? We’ll get into that now, starting with how …

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LISTEN: Columbia men’s basketball overcomes Princeton at Jadwin Gym

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Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 75-65 win for Columbia men’s basketball (15-9, 4-6 Ivy) over Princeton (8-17, 4-6) at Jadwin Gym Saturday night:

Red-hot Cornell men’s basketball puts away Columbia

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With Manhattan experiencing Ithaca-like frigidity on Saturday afternoon, the visiting Cornell men’s basketball team felt right at home and used that wintry familiarity to dominate Columbia, 88-67, at Levien Gymnasium.

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LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball clips Columbia for first road win

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Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps an 80-68 win Saturday night at Levien Gym for Princeton men’s basketball (8-14, 4-3 Ivy) over Columbia (14-7, 3-4):

Columbia men’s basketball ends three-game skid win at Dartmouth

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HANOVER, N.H. – Kevin Hovde knew his first order of business coming into Columbia was cleaning up the defensive end of the floor, which turned out to be his predecessor Jim Engles’ undoing, along with some unfortunately timed injuries.

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Yale men’s basketball bombards Columbia from long range for home win

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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.

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Brown men’s basketball takes down Columbia in overtime for first Ivy League win

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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.”

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Harvard men’s basketball cruises to victory at Columbia

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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.

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Columbia men’s basketball exorcises Newman Arena demons in Ivy opener versus Cornell

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In a game of runs with 12 lead changes, the Columbia men’s basketball team flipped a nine-point deficit midway through the second half into a nine-point advantage entering crunch time against Cornell and cruised to a 104-99 victory in both teams’ Ivy League opener Monday.

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Columbia men’s basketball overcomes injuries to thump Fairfield

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Leo D. Mahoney Arena is pictured Nov. 26, 2015, the place and date of a 106-77 win for Columbia men’s basketball over Fairfield. (Ray Curren | Ivy Hoops Online)

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – After going 1-13 in Ivy League play last season, the Columbia men’s basketball team was picked dead last in the 2025-26 media poll, and it wasn’t particularly close.

The all-knowing computers disagreed a bit, taking into account Columbia’s solid nonconference campaign last season and the fact the Lions returned a decent amount of minutes in a year where many others did not.

The story of the 2025-26 Ivy League basketball season has barely begun, but it’s starting to look like the media projections are in big trouble.

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