Columbia and Cornell open their home-and-home series Saturday in Manhattan, and one of the teams is leaving Levien Gym with a costly second Ivy loss in January. Penn and Princeton don’t meet for the first time until February 13 and there’s a good chance their second meeting won’t matter for the fifth straight year. With the Tigers at 0-2 in the league, no travel partner season series should have as big an effect on the Ivy race as the one between the Cs. This week’s 14GT takes a look at the implications on the standings.
The Pomeroy Ratings say there’s a 61-percent chance Columbia wins on its home floor, while they give Cornell a 70-percent chance of taking the return game in Ithaca. We’ll be using those odds in computing the chances of the three possible outcomes, listed in ascending order of likelihood.
Scenario A: Columbia sweeps
If the Lions are able to shrug off the dismal showing against Penn last time out and avenge last year’s Bronx-style 22-point beatdown in the city at the hands of the Big Red, they’ll be in decent shape. Winning the second leg on the road will be the bigger challenge, as Columbia hasn’t taken down a Top 200 opponent on the road all season. But should the Lions pull off the sweep, they’ll go into February at 3-1 in the league and very much alive. While Columbia finished 3-11 two years ago when it last won three of four to open Ivy play, this is a very different team this season. A start like that would go a long way toward a .500 or better record in Year Four of the Jones Era.
On the other side of the coin, Cornell would be in major trouble with three losses in the league before the calendar hits February. The Big Red has legitimate Ivy title hopes for next year when Adam Gore, Jason Hartford, and Collin Robinson will be playing, but no team ever has won the league following a season in which it had a losing Ivy record. Cornell would need to go 6-4 the rest of the way just to avoid that fate, and still has all three Ivy road weekends remaining.
Odds: 18.3 percent
Scenario B: Cornell sweeps
The Big Red takes more momentum into the matchup, and if it can find a way to win again in New York without Gore and protect its home court, suddenly this season still holds plenty of meaning for the program. Cornell would find itself the winner of six of its last seven contests and would charge into the Dartmouth-Harvard road trip with a full head of steam. Additionally, at 3-1, Steve Donahue would have to be feeling pretty good about his chances of a third-straight first-division finish and his first career overall winning record.
Dropping both games to Cornell would be disastrous for Columbia. It would wipe out all the good vibes of the 7-3 start and deal a serious blow to the Lions’ hopes of finishing in the top half of the league — and along with that, next year’s chances of contending. At 1-3, Columbia would be in the exact same predicament as Cornell in the previous scenario, needing to win six of 10 to close out the season, with six road games still to play.
Odds: 27.3 percent
Scenario C: Split
By far the most likely outcome, a split between two teams of similar quality would hurt both teams, but not mortally. After next weekend, at least three other Ivies — and probably four — will have at least two league losses, which would mean both Cs would be no worse than fourth in the league in this scenario. While neither team would have much of a shot at making Penn sweat this year, both would be in fine shape to finish in first division, setting them up to make a run at the top next season.
Odds: 54.4 percent
