Get schooled.
All four underdogs won on Friday night, then as if that weren’t enough, Saturday brought another pair of upsets. There was also drama, with the two games in Manhattan decided at the buzzer and Princeton and Cornell playing two overtimes on Friday. When the smoke cleared, Penn was still atop the standing with a two-game lead on its closest competition, but pretty much everything else had changed.
This week’s Power Rankings were a difficult task after a crazy weekend that saw the underdogs go 6-2 against the favorites. The bottom three teams in the league going into the weekend went 4-0 against the top five, including home sweeps by one-win Columbia and Dartmouth squads.
Key sequence: Lenny Collins found Andrew Naeve along the baseline for a 10-foot jumper that gave Cornell its first lead of the game at 48-47. The score stayed that way for over two minutes until Ibby Jaaber hit a jumper to put Penn back on top. A minute later, Brian Grandieri put back a Jaaber missed three-pointer to expand Penn’s lead to three. Lenny Collins missed a tying three-pointer, and Steve Danley rebounded and converted Mark Zoller’s missed three to give the Quakers a five-point lead. After another Collins miss, Penn found Friedrich Ebede underneath, but the senior rushed a wide-open layup that rolled out on him. Cornell used three free throws on its next two possessions to make it a 53-51 game with under five minutes left. Eric Osmundson answered with a big three-pointer to restore the five-point Penn cushion, igniting a 12-0 run fueled by nine successful free throws on the next four Quaker possessions to put Penn up 65-51.
Key sequence: With Princeton leading by three with the ball and the clock under two minutes, Luke Owings was whistled for a charge. Columbia got the ball inside to John Baumann, and Edwin Buffmire was forced to foul. Baumann hit both free throws to make it a one-point game with 90 seconds left. With the shot clock down to three seconds, Brett Loscalzo fouled Scott Greenman, who restored the Tigers’ three-point lead with a pair of free throws. At the other end, Justin Armstrong got inside for a layup and another foul on Buffmire, but missed the potential game-tying free throw. Columbia double-teamed Greenman and opted to foul Noah Savage intentionally with 27 seconds left. After a Princeton timeout, Savage missed the front end of a one-and-one, and the Lions had a final shot. Armstrong then put Columbia on top with a baseline jumper with 10.9 seconds left.
Key sequence: Brian Cusworth dunked to tie the game at 39-39 early in the second half, but Dominick Martin answered with a layup at the other end to put the Bulldogs back on top. Mike Beal grabbed Cusworth’s miss, but couldn’t hit a a jumper. Sam Kaplan missed at the other end, but Drew Housman’s ill-advised pass led to an Eric Flato three-pointer in transition. Then two teams traded turnovers on the next four possessions, before Matt Stehle missed a three-pointer. Caleb Holmes hit another transition three to make it a 47-39 game. After alternating offensive off-ball fouls on Brian Darcy and Matt Kyle, Yale’s Martin ran out after a Cusworth missed jumper and Flato got him the ball for a fastbreak layup to give the Bulldogs a double-digit lead at 49-39.