Game of the Week
Harvard (10-5, 2-0 Ivy) at Yale (9-8, 1-1 Ivy) – Friday, January 27, 7:00 pm
While Harvard-Yale lost a lot of its luster after Yale stumbled at Brown last weekend, this is still the premier Ivy League game in the month of January. Yale can repair some of the damage done by the Brown loss with a win over a Harvard team that appears to be the only other team with a shot at Penn in the league. Meanwhile, between the quality of the opponent and the hostile environment at The Church, this is Harvard’s toughest game on paper outside of the Penn series, so a win here would be huge for the Crimson’s title hopes. Yale’s inability to take care of the ball cost it the game against Brown, and it’s going to face a bigger challenge against Harvard, who ranks 20th in the nation at forcing turnovers. Harvard has attempted 344 free throws on the season compared to 220 for its opponents, so the Crimson will be looking for another lopsided free throw disparity in its favor. Fortuitously, the game will be televised on the YES Network (DirecTV channel 622) — ending a drought of over two years since YES last televised an Ivy League matchup between two teams with even semi-realistic title hopes.

Line of the Week

1.16.2006 vs. Lafayette   TOT-FG 3-PT   REBOUNDS                 FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT TP A TO BLK S MIN Osmundson, Eric………… G 7-13 4-7 0-0 2 4 6 18 5 2 0 1 31
Impressing – Penn rolling. After treating the home crowd to a late dinner on Monday, the Quakers have reeled off three straight wins by margins of 30 or more points. The Penn defense is feasting on lower-level opponents, forcing an average of 23.3 turnovers a game against Ivy and Patriot League foes. – Glen Miller. Miller and his assistants did a masterful job of fixing things after getting blown out at Yale one week earlier, resulting in one of the more stunning turnarounds you’ll see. Even if his talent level is down from where it’s been in past seasons, Miller is still one of the top coaches in the league. – Columbia snaps its skid. The Lions needed a win in the worst way after losing their last six Division I games and their previous 12 Ivy League games dating back to last season. Columbia got that win on Saturday, and in a way that reminded Lion fans of how they won those close games early on this year. – Ibby Jaaber. Just another 8-for-14, 4-for-7 from three shooting night this week. Jaaber’s averaging 18.9 points per game on 56.3-percent shooting overall and hitting 41.2 percent of his threes, while taking over games defensively in what could be the best individual season of the Academic Index Era. – Lenny Collins finds his groove. After foundering for a while, the Cornell captain put together consecutive strong outings against Princeton and Columbia. Collins averaged 16.5 points on 11-of-21 (52.4 percent) shooting while pulling down 7.5 rebounds and dishing out 4.5 assists in those two games.		Distressing – Yale goes down at Brown. James Jones preaches toughness, but Yale showed no signs of mental or physical toughness in the surprising loss at Brown on Saturday. Seriously, is Yale contractually bound to shoot itself in the foot with a loss or two to Brown to open every single Ivy League season? – Cornell blows it. The Big Red led Columbia by eight with 6:15 left and by two with 2.5 seconds left, only to cough up both leads. Now instead of improving to 3-1 in the league and putting the Penn loss behind it with a win in New York on Saturday, Cornell will be trying to get back to .500. – Dartmouth at 2-13. Yeah, UNH won at Albany on Sunday and has won five of six, but that doesn’t excuse the Big Green’s latest loss. Terry Dunn needs his team to go 6-6 the rest of the way just to avoid a 20-loss season — something that happened only once in Dave Faucher’s 13 seasons at the helm. – Ryan Rourke. For a guy who has displayed tremendous ability at times, Rourke has also had too many games like Saturday’s. The senior scored just six points on 1-for-4 shooting and registered no assists against five turnovers, then blew his defensive assignment on Dragutin Kravic in the final seconds. – Ivy League weekly honors. No, the old story about an intern doing these awards is just myth. But when a 21-point performance in 28 minutes by the likely POY doesn’t even make the Honor Roll and a guy scoring 10 points off the bench does, that doesn’t lend much credibility to the awards.