Get schooled.
Tonight’s Harvard-Yale tilt will feature the only two teams that have shown themselves to have any realistic hopes of challenging Penn in the league this season. But after Yale’s disastrous loss at Brown last weekend, the Bulldogs can’t afford to drop another early Ivy contest, particularly at home against a fellow contender. Meanwhile, outside of the series with Penn, this is likely the only league game in which Harvard won’t be favored.
Yes, it was Penn’s first Big 5 win of the season. And yes, it was over a decent La Salle team. And yes, it was Fran Dunphy’s 300th victory as a head coach. But the most important thing about last night was that the Quakers were able to win when Ibby Jaaber had his worst game of the season.
After an eight-day layoff, Penn returns to action tonight when the Quakers host La Salle (10-6) at The Palestra. Both teams will be looking for their first Big 5 win of the season. Penn is favored both on paper and by seven points in Vegas, and should make it five straight wins over the Explorers. However, the game is interesting from an Ivy League perspective in that La Salle appears to be rather similar to Harvard, who appears to be Penn’s closest competition in the league.
Yesterday Brown and Columbia took down favored Yale and Cornell teams. Earlier in the day we talked about how these were games the Bulldogs and Big Red needed to win to have any chance of contending in the league. It sounds weird to count out teams two or three games into the league schedule, but yesterday’s results pretty much put the kibosh on Yale’s and Cornell’s seasons.
We’re in the midst of a lull in the schedule, with Ivy teams playing just three games in a 12-day period. Today’s travel partner games in Providence and Ithaca are the only league contests in the span. If they’re truly upper division teams, both Yale (a 3.5-point favorite) and Cornell (a 5.5-point favorite) need to take care of business this afternoon.