With both second-place teams due to visit The Palestra over the next two weeks — and facing each other in a possible elimination battle at The Church in between — it’s understandable for people to focus on those highly anticipated showdowns. However, the reality is that in order for these games to have real championship implications, the challengers need to avoid additional upsets at the hands of also-rans. For this season’s Ivy contenders, Friday night is all about handling their business.
Dartmouth (8-13, 3-5 Ivy) at Yale (10-11, 6-2 Ivy) – 7:00 pm ET
Gametracker | Dartmouth audio | Yale audio
Both teams are coming off of nailbiters last Saturday, with very different results. Dartmouth will be looking to build off of its first win at Princeton in 20 years — and with Leon Pattman back in Hanover with illness, no less — while Yale wants to forget all about what transpired in Ithaca. One thing the Bulldogs do not want to forget is their January 20 home loss to Brown. It’s the reason Yale is in second place instead of first, as well as a good lesson about what can happen if you don’t show up to play against a second-division opponent in a very solid Ivy League. When these two teams got together three weeks ago up in Hanover, the Bulldogs had to hold off a second-half rally by the home team to escape with the win. Yale’s hockey team is taking on arch rival Harvard tonight at 7:30 pm, so the Dawg Pound may not be as full and boisterous as it normally is.
Without the services of its leading scorer last weekend, the Big Green reinvented itself as a strong rebounding team, grabbing 41.0 percent of rebounds at its offense end in the two games, while holding Penn and Princeton to just 25.8-percent offensive rebounding combined. Dartmouth faces a tough task in repeating that performance against the league’s top rebounding team in Yale. Terry Dunn loves to play a tenacious man-to-man defense, while Yale relies on a lot of one-on-one play to get buckets. Defensively, the main concern for the Big Green has to be fouling, as the Bulldogs have made a great deal of their hay at the free throw line in Ivy play. Combined with Dartmouth’s inability to get the line, this could result in a huge free throw disparity. The Big Green scores most of its points inside the arc, which happens to be a weakness for the Bulldogs defensively and could allow the visitors to hang around and make things interesting.
Stat to watch: Free throw attempt differential
Pomeroy says: Dartmouth 56, Yale 70
Cornell (13-9, 6-2 Ivy) at Princeton (10-11, 1-6 Ivy) – 7:00 pm ET (ESPNU)
Live stats | Cornell audio | Princeton audio
Despite what the good folks in Las Vegas might think, Cornell has to go into tonight’s game at Jadwin Gym as the favorite. The Big Red has won six of seven since the loss to Penn in the league opener, while the Tigers are in free fall, dropping seven of eight. Cornell finds itself in the thick of the Ivy race, while Princeton resides in the league basement. Of course, the last time the Big Red played an Ivy road game against a theoretically down-and-out team, it ended up absorbing a very costly loss at Harvard. As with Yale, that loss is the difference between first and second place for Steve Donahue’s squad, which is why Donhue should be reminding him team what happened in Boston to make sure nobody is looking ahead to Saturday night in Philadelphia. The first meeting between these teams was an ugly affair, with Princeton’s complete offensive ineptitude trumping Cornell’s carelessness with the ball in a 55-35 Big Red victory.
Princeton is struggling to “put the ball in the basket,” as Joe Scott is so fond of saying lately, being held to 35 points in three of its last seven games and failing to hit the 50-point mark in all but one of those contests. The task won’t get any easier against a Cornell squad that is playing better defense right now than any Ivy team outside of Penn. The Big Red is holding opponents to a league-low 27.0 percent from outside the arc, which is very bad news for a Tiger team that attempts 53.6 percent of its shots from three-point range. Cornell also is tops in free throw prevention, so given Princeton’s recent foul-happy ways, there could be a lopsided nature to the free throw numbers. The Big Red should be concerned about a repeat of its 18-turnovers-in-49-possessions performance against the Tigers, because Cornell ranks dead last in the league in turnover percentage offensively at 26.2 percent, while Princeton is tops at forcing turnovers defensively at 24.5 percent.
Stat to watch: Princeton’s three-point shooting percentage
Pomeroy says: Cornell 47, Princeton 46
Columbia (13-9, 4-4 Ivy) at Penn (15-8, 6-1 Ivy) – 7:00 pm ET
Live stats | Columbia audio | WKCR audio | Penn video | Penn audio
Columbia has to feel like it has a lot to prove after getting blown out by Penn at Levien Gym back on the opening weekend of Ivy play. In that game, the Lions did what so many other Ivy teams have done against Penn and slowed the tempo, but the Quaker defense clamped down to hold the hosts to just 43 points. Joe Jones will be looking to change his fortunes at The Palestra, where his Columbia teams are 0-3 with an average margin of defeat of 17.7 points. On the other bench, Glen Miller seems to be tired of hearing about how his team can’t defend, because in Tuesday’s postgame press conference he spoke in glowing terms and at length about the Quakers’ excellent defensive performance the first half of league play. The bad news for Miller is that his high-powered offense has been sputtering of late, exceeding one point per possession only once in the past four games, as Ibby Jaaber has found himself in a shooting slump. The Quakers seem to have forgotten that while it’s great to get touches in the paint, it’s better to kick the ball back out to an open three than to force a less-than-optimum look from in close.
Columbia has an edge down low with the size and strength of John Baumann and Ben Nwachukwu, but somehow interior play has managed to be a huge weakness for the Lions in Ivy play. Jones has to wonder how his team is dead last in the league at an abysmal 43.4-percent shooting inside the arc –, and below average defensively, allowing opponents to shoot 52.1 percent on two-point attempts. The Light Blue’s frontcourt is due for a breakout game, but it may not come against the Quakers, who are allowing a mere 40.1-percent shooting from inside the arc in league games. With their inside game floundering, the Lions have become reliant on the three-pointer to carry them offensively. However, Penn has held Ivy opponents to a frigid 28.1 percent from the perimeter. One place where Columbia may have an edge is on the boards, as it is one of the better rebounding teams in the league, while Penn has had some issues in that department — particularly on the defensive glass the past four games. After showing improvement in keeping opponents off the line in non-league play, the Lions are back to their old foul ways, which means the Quakers should get plenty of chances to practice their free throw shooting in this one.
Stat to watch: Points in the paint
Pomeroy says: Columbia 61, Penn 76
Harvard (10-12, 3-5 Ivy) at Brown (7-16, 2-6 Ivy) – 7:00 pm ET
Live stats | Harvard audio | Brown audio
Last but not least, we have the only game of the night not involving a team in the top half of the standings — however if the first meeting between two teams is any indication, this could end up being the evening’s most entertaining game. Back on January 27, Harvard staved off a late Brown charge to claim an exciting 92-88 victory in Brian Cusworth’s last hurrah. The Crimson will come to the Pizzitola Center as a very different team without Cusworth, so Craig Robinson will need to tweak the gameplan a bit for this one. Instead of working the ball in to his big man, Frank Sullivan seems to be turning Drew Housman loose to penetrate and get to the hoop. Harvard has seen quite few 1-3-1 halfcourt traps recently, so Brown probably won’t have the same success it had with that defense in the second half of the first game. Both sides are coming in with a bad taste in their mouths after getting swept last weekend on the road, so victory should taste awfully sweet to the winning team.
This game may take a while to play, even if it doesn’t go overtime, as the Bears and Crimson rank first and sixth nationally, respectively, in free throw rate. Their earlier battle produced a combined 48 personal fouls and 56 free throws, with 47 of the night’s 180 points coming at the stripe. Aside from their proclivity to get to the line, these teams are about as different offensively as you can get. Brown takes 44.7 percent of its attempts from three-point range, while Harvard is at just 25.1 percent. The Bears record assists on 61.1 percent of their field goals, while the Crimson relies heavily on individual plays for their scoring, ranking last in the league in assist percentage at just 43.9 percent. Against a Brown team that ranks as one of the weaker rebounding teams in Division I, Harvard should have its way on the boards. Defensively, the Crimson will need to do a better job of keeping tabs on the Bears’ shooters than it did late in the first game, while Brown will have to keep Housman out of the lane and stop Jim Goffredo from going off as he did last year in Providence.
Stat to watch: Free throw attempts
Pomeroy says: Harvard 70, Brown 74
