January 8 Power Rankings

Last week saw Ivy teams recover somewhat, going 6-5. However, two of the wins were over non-Division I opponents and two of the losses were against weak opponents at home. Even though the league schedule technically got underway this past weekend, we’ll call this The Final Power Rankings Before Ivy Play.

An actual, real-life, non-moral victory

Last night’s Penn win at Hawai’i is one of the better road wins by an Ivy team in recent memory. The Warriors were shorthanded and tired from playing five games in ten days, but the Quakers had their own issues with a 15-day layoff and the flight to the Aloha State. In a game that Penn led almost all the way through but never by double digits, three plays late in the game loomed large.

December 25 Power Rankings

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.

Bad night for Brown

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.