Get schooled.
This was the week of Ivies versus the big boys, with four games against Big East opponents and one against a Pac-10 power. Three of them predictably ended up with the Ivy team on the wrong end of a blowout, but two were respectably close. This is noteworthy in that it wasn’t Penn playing these teams close.
In a halftime spot on the Harvard radio broadcast of Tuesday’s game, Harvard College Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Bill Fitzsimmons announced that four men’s basketball prospects had been accepted through Harvard’s early action program.
On a night when three of four Ivy teams were victorious, it seems a tad negative to focus on Brown. But while Cornell was rolling over Army, Yale was rallying past a scrappy Navy team, and Harvard was blowing a lead then coming back to beat Colgate, the Bears suffered not one but two painful losses against an inferior opponent.
Dartmouth’s loss at Quinnipiac last night dropped the Ivy League’s composite record back down to a season-worst seven games under .500. But help is on the way. After a league-wide trend of tougher games, tonight represents a breather. All four Ivy teams should be favored at home, with Pomeroy predicting all but Yale to win by double digits.
The Harvard Crimson’s Michael James reports Harvard center Brian Cusworth will sit out the Crimson’s final three non-league games and won’t play until the Ivy League opener against Dartmouth on January 7. Cusworth fractured his hand diving for a loose ball against Central Connecticut back on December 3 and has missed the four games since.