Another week, another upset of a Big Ten team. The bad news is that this was one of just five wins for Ivy teams in a week where the league went a combined 5-10. Two of the three teams to win a share of the title over the past 20 seasons are mired in five-game losing streaks, while the third has been on the wrong end of some ugly scores. Meanwhile, two Ivies that looked to be turning things around got in the holiday spirit by giving winless teams their first victories of the season.
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| 1. | Harvard (4-4) | 4 | Tommy Amaker and Dan McGeary each faced former teams this past week, and both emerged victorious. Harvard’s upset of Michigan in front of the ESPNU cameras was a truly memorable scene at Lavietes Pavilion, and could energize the program. |
| 2. | Cornell (4-2) | 1 | The second-half defensive problems returned on Saturday, when Big Red gave up 50 points to Colgate after halftime and lost. The top defensive team in the league almost always wins the Ivy title so Cornell clearly has some serious work ahead of it on that front. |
| 3. | Brown (3-3) | 2 | The Bears proved they had learned from their mistakes in the Wagner game, when they squandered a lead and couldn’t recover. Against UC Davis, Brown was able to absorb the Aggies’ run that saw the lead shrink to three, and respond with one of its own to win. |
| 4. | Dartmouth (3-4) | 5 | The Big Green made the most of some officiating breaks at the end of the Vermont game to pull off the big win. Unfortunately, this didn’t translate into momentum, as Dartmouth was humbled by a previously winless Stony Brook team on Saturday. |
| 5. | Yale (1-5) | 3 | Three straight poor performances and a five-game losing streak should mean a much bigger drop, but the three teams below Yale have fared even worse. The tough road trip no longer is an excuse, as the Bulldogs need to beat Wagner at home. |
| 6. | Princeton (2-5) | 8 | The Tigers went 0-2 on the week and still jumped up two spots, mostly because their losses were to Big East teams by respectable margins. Princeton looks to be an improved side from last season, but Lincoln Gunn needs some help from his teammates. |
| 7. | Columbia (2-5) | 6 | The tour of the New York metro area has not been kind to the Lions, who were not competitive against an 0-6 Sacred Heart team. Joe Jones’s veteran squad is much better than this, but it has shot the ball poorly and hasn’t been able to get stops defensively. |
| Penn (2-6) | 6 | After a bad stretch midway through the second half at Lafayette cost the Quakers their 23-game winning streak against Patriot League opponents, Saturday’s Villanova game was over nine minutes in. Penn’s defense ranks 315th nationally at 1.12 points per possession. |
