Ivy League Hoops

[Jack]

Looks like an exciting finish in the Ancient 8 this year, with Sydney Johnson's Princeton Tigers now controlling their own destiny (as far as I can tell) but facing a very difficult task to return to the NCAA tournament. Princeton is 7-4 in conference, in second place behind 9-3 Cornell, but holding a W over Cornell and facing them again next Saturday in Ithaca. They travel to Columbia first on Friday and finish out at archrival Penn March 10.

Win out and they are 10-4 and Cornell can finish no better than 10-4, with Princeton holding the HTH tiebreaker (and an NCAA bid, with no conference tourny of course). Pomeroy says they will lose all three games, but it seems like their KenPom number is really based on a brutal pre-conference stretch without giving much credit for improved play once the league started. Would love to see them get it done.

[SirSaxa]

Thanks for the update Jack. It would be terrific to see Sydney get his first Ivy Championship in only his second season. But as you said, that's a pretty tough slate ahead. Nice to see the JT3 coaching tree succeeding!

[The Stig]

Speaking of Princeton, Dana O'Neil a nice article on Pete Carril here: sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=3930913

She mentions the 1989 Georgetown-Princeton game a few too many times for my taste, but she does include a quote from JTIII.

[Elvado]

So sad to see that Tommy "Just another flop from K-ville" Amaker hasn't cheated his way to the top at Harvard.

[AvantGuardHoya]

Amaker has planted the seeds for success at Harvard. They edged league leader Cornell last Saturday, could finish season with a .500 conference record, and end up with the second most overall wins (after Cornell) of all the Ivy schools this year. He has a good freshman class in place and seems poised to have competitive teams in the future in Cambridge.