Around the Rim with Brian Delaney and the Ithaca Journal

Two freshmen, Dartmouth's Jabari Trotter, 25, and Cornell's Chris Wroblewski, are shown during the Big Red's double overtime victory on Feb. 14, as Cornell junior Louis Dale, 12, looks on. With four games left, Cornell needs three wins to capture a league championship.

Around the Rim: Ivy League's unpredictability sets up potential clinching scenarios for Cornell

By Brian Delaney
The Ithaca Journal
February 24, 2009

ITHACA — The unpredictability of Ivy League men's basketball has reached that rare level of top-to-bottom, inconsistency-driven balance where, with just two weekends remaining, five of eight teams own winning records.

Despite a roster superior in talent to its brethren, Cornell hasn't escaped the effects of that trend with losses to Princeton and, most recently on Friday, Yale.

But because of that very trend, Cornell might very well clinch its second league title outright on Saturday night while crowding around a computer in Cambridge, Mass. Here's how.

Penn and Princeton complete their season series on March 10. That game aside, each Ivy team has four games remaining.

Cornell, at 8-2, holds a two-game lead in the loss column over the second-place foursome of Columbia (6-4), Dartmouth (6-4), Princeton (5-4) and Yale (6-4), with a road swing through Dartmouth and Harvard on tap this weekend.

First, Cornell must sweep. Given the unpredictable state of the league this year, as well as Dartmouth's display of moxie in that 79-76 double overtime loss in Ithaca on Valentine's Day, that's no cupcake.

But based on that assumption, each of the four-loss teams would have to suffer one defeat this weekend in kind.

Considering the matchups: Cornell at Dartmouth; Yale at Penn and Princeton; Brown at Princeton (Brown's only win came against the Tigers) and Columbia at Dartmouth and Harvard — it's certainly possible.

In fact, Cornell could clinch a share of the league title as early as Friday night.

Last year, Cornell's women beat Princeton in their regular season finale, then learned they finished tied for first while watching refreshed live stats of Yale's upset of Harvard.

During his 10-year career as an assistant at Penn, Steve Donahue and the Quakers once learned of their championship while busing back to Philadelphia from Hanover, N.H.

Both those championship celebrations paled in comparison to the rush-the-court euphoria that engulfed Newman Nation after Cornell's title-clinching win over Harvard last March 1, 2008.

A repeat of that night could be in store, should one of those aforementioned four-loss teams join the Big Red in a hard-to-come-by sweep this weekend. In such a scenario, Cornell could then wrap up the title at home against the league's two longstanding behemoths — Penn on March 6, or Princeton on March 7.

Considering the way things have gone to this point, only two non-comforting certainties exist. Harvard (3-7) and Brown (1-9) can't win it.

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Players of the Week

Men

Ivy League: Dartmouth senior Alex Barnett won his third player of the week award in five weeks, after helping the Big Green to their first road sweep of Penn and Princeton since the Ivy League's inception. Barnett's freshman teammate, David Rufful, picked up his second rookie of the week honor in three weeks after averaging 11.5 points over the weekend.