Despite a couple of disappointing individual results this past week, things continue to look up for the Ivy League, which ended 2006 ranked among the Top 20 conferences in two of the three major ratings services. This is technically the final Power Rankings prior to the start of league play, since Harvard and Dartmouth kick off things once again this year on Saturday.
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| 1. | Princeton (8-4) | 3 | Beating the only winless team left in Division I turns out to be enough to give the Tigers the top spot this week when one of the teams ahead of them had an awful loss and the other didn’t play. Against a weak opponent, Princeton took care of business and won by double digits on the road. |
| 2. | Penn (6-5) | 2 | The Quakers held steady in the second spot after a bye week that gave them plenty of time to plan how they can avoid embarrassment at North Carolina on Wednesday. Then again, the last time we expected Penn to get blown out on Tobacco Road, it gave a respectable showing at Duke. |
| 3. | Brown (5-8) | 4 | After going 4-2 in its last six games, there’s no shame in Brown losing at a quality Texas A&M-Corprus Christi team on Saturday. Aside from the big upset of Providence, the Bears are winless against Top 200 opponents and undefeated against teams outside the Top 200. |
| 4. | Yale (3-8) | 8 | Just one game removed from the low point of the season, Yale had its best moment so far on Saturday — an easy road win over a decent Navy team. Assuming Eric Flato’s injury isn’t serious, the Bulldogs look very capable of a first-division finish in a tougher-than-normal Ivy League. |
| 5. | Columbia (7-5) | 1 | St. Francis definitely had been playing better in December, but the Lions’ loss to the Terriers should quell the talk of Columbia contending for the Ivy title a year earlier than expected. It was the worst loss for an Ivy team since Carnegie Mellon’s infamous upset win at Princeton. |
| 6. | Dartmouth (4-7) | 6 | Considering the Big Green was as close to full strength as it’s going to get this season, the win at UMES was closer than it should have been. Still, Dartmouth is now 4-1 with Leon Pattman back and can take some real momentum into Ivy play with a home win over Army this week. |
| 7. | Cornell (4-7) | 7 | The Big Red was able to hang tough at Iowa for 32 minutes, but it will have to settle for just one Big Ten scalp this season. Losers of six of its last seven, Cornell now faces the unenviable task of winning its three remaining non-conference contests just to finish .500 outside the league. |
| 8. | Harvard (7-7) | 5 | Yes, UC Irvine has beaten some decent teams (South Carolina, Pepperdine, and Sam Houston State) on its home court, but Harvard losing to the Anteaters by 33 points raises some serious red flags. The Crimson now has dropped three straight, and two of the three were blowout losses. |
