Get schooled.
The Northeast is in the grip of a cold snap with subzero wind chills as Yale and Brown get on the bus to head north for their first Ivy weekend. All four teams have struggled with their consistency this year, with Brown and Harvard both snapping four-game losing streaks last time out at the expense of Yale and Dartmouth squads that had been playing well prior to that.
Tonight’s Big 5 contest in Philly is going to be weird for a lot of people, with a former coach returning to the arena he called home for 17 generally outstanding seasons to face the program he re-built. Against that backdrop, it’s a very big game for the league, as Ivy teams need to win all three of their remaining non-league games to finish over .500.
One set of travel partners is wrapping up its home-and-home series, while another pair is meeting for the first time. The two matinee battles are the only games of the weekend involving Ivy teams, and one of the games could play a big role in determining the final makeup of the standings. Here’s what you should know:
Of the Ivy League’s four remaining non-league games, three are Big 5 games for Penn. Dartmouth’s loss to UNH earlier this week dropped the combined Ivy non-league mark to three games under .500, so there’s no margin for error in any of these games if the league is to have a winning season.
This morning the Columbia Daily Specator became the second Ivy League school newspaper to report incorrectly that Brian Cusworth’s eligibility had run out at Harvard. The Spectator joined the Daily Pennsylvanian, who made the same mistake 24 hours earlier. Both papers probably based their reports on a New York Times feature on Cusworth last month that contained the same error, and apparently didn’t do their math correctly when adding up the 18 games he will play this season.