Winthrop had no problem in its Big South Conference Tournament opener, easily dispatching Charleston Southern in a game that wasn’t expected to be close. Therefore, there are no changes in the s-curve. Up north, the regular season Patriot League co-champs begin postseason play tonight at home, and should the Patriot League bid go to another team, that’s great news for the Ivy representative.

The Ivy League’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid hasn’t been awarded, but conference tournament play begins tonight, so the Seed Watch is beginning using the same methodology for projecting the Ivy League representative as is used for the other conferences: the highest rated/seeded team still alive. The “Enemies” list is done with this in mind, however the “Allies” list won’t appear until the Ivy League title is won.

Game of the Week
Yale (13-12, 9-3 Ivy) at Penn (19-8, 10-1 Ivy) - Friday, March 2, 7:00 pm
This one feels very anticlimactic after it looked like it could be for the Ivy title as recently as Saturday, however Yale’s blowout loss at home to Columbia changed all that. The game still has championship implications, but really only in the sense that Penn can clinch the league with a win. The Bulldogs aren’t out of it officially, but they would have to sweep the Ps on the road while needing the Quakers also to lose either against Brown on Saturday or Princeton on Tuesday.

Aside from the teams at the top and bottom of the standings, everyone else split this weekend. This made putting together this week’s Power Rankings a very tricky endeavor. Nonetheless, the show must go on. Some teams are ranked below opponents they may have beaten recently, but if you look at records over the past few weeks, you’ll understand why they are ranked in this way.

Key sequence: Brown closed to within three on a Marcus Becker steal and Steve Gruber fastbreak layup with 8:58 remaining, but Ryan Wittman answered with a three-pointer. Mark McAndrew drew a foul on Ugo Ihekweazu, but Becker was slapped with a technical foul. McAndrew hit his free throws to make it a four-point game, but Wittman also was perfect at the line and Louis Dale sank a three-pointer to restore the Cornell lead to nine. Chris Skrelja got the Bears back to within six with a three-pointer, but after a quick exchange of steals, Dale drilled a three to restore the margin to nine. Dale then came up with a steal from McAndrew and fed Wittman for a three that made it a double-digit game with six minutes left.