Most of the Ivy League is on break for final exams, so it was a very light week around the league, with just six games since the last poll. The results weren’t good — just two wins in those games, and a 1-5 record against Division I competition.
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| 1. | Brown (5-4) | 1 | The Bears hold onto the top spot despite remaining idle, and for good reason, since they boast the top RPI, Sagarin, and Pomeroy ratings in the league. Chris Skrelja has been a key contributor for Brown, posting career highs in scoring, rebounding, assists, and shooting percentage. |
| 2. | Cornell (4-2) | 2 | We’ll find out if gaining the services of seven-footer Jeff Foote can help shore up a defense that ranks 278th in Division I. Foote definitely should improve Cornell’s rank in blocked shots (331st), and opponent two-point shooting (256th), but probably not turnovers created (320th). |
| 3. | Dartmouth (5-4) | 4 | The Big Green achieves the rare feat of moving up in the rankings after playing a non-Division I opponent, but it was more about what others did than anything that happened on Saturday night. Upcoming road games at Quinnipiac and Army should provide much better evaluations. |
| 4. | Yale (3-6) | 3 | BU absolutely torched the Yale defense on Monday, putting up 63.8-percent effective shooting — the highest allowed by the Bulldogs this season. Eric Flato seems to be out of his shooting funk, but nine games into the season, he’s just 24 turnovers shy of last year’s season total. |
| 5. | Columbia (4-6) | 7 | Ben Nwachukwu’s big game in the convincing win over St. Francis was great to see. Given that the next two opponents are Villanova and Polytechnic, we’ll probably have to wait until Lehigh on January 2 to see if Columbia can break the pattern of alternating wins and losses. |
| 6. | Penn (3-7) | 6 | Glen Miller undoubtedly wishes the 11-day layoff hadn’t come immediately following his team’s best overall performance of the season. While Penn fans dream of the return of David Whitehurst, the Quakers will try to pick up where they left off against a decent Elon team. |
| 7. | Harvard (4-8) | 4 | The worst part of the four-game losing streak isn’t that it immediately followed the Michigan win, but that these were teams against which the Crimson went 3-1 last season. The biggest difference was rebounding, with Harvard outscored 53-33 in second-chance points in those games. |
| 8. | Princeton (2-8) | 8 | The two season-opening wins now are a distant memory, as the Tigers are mired in one of the worst stretches in program history. The common thread of all eight losses during the skid: Princeton has failed to hold opponents under 1.01 points per possession in every game. |
