ANALYSIS: What does Princeton's loss mean?

The Princeton men's basketball team's souble overtime loss to Yale on Friday does not just help Penn. The headline was almost as big as the one that said "Acquitted" on the front page. "Stunner ends streak" read The New Haven Register Saturday morning after Yale's improbable 60-58 double-overtime defeat of Princeton Friday night. The Elis' win ended the Tigers' Ivy League win streak that had spanned three years and 35 games, not to mention the entire head coaching career of Princeton front-man Bill Carmody. While the 35 wins were barely within spitting distance of the mammoth 48-game record streak Penn ran up from 1992-96, the loss is significant in that it is the first dent in Carmody's armor since he took over the team three years ago. No wonder, then, that the sound of Yale fans rushing the court in celebration quickly spread to the stands of the Pizzitola Sports Center in Providence. "There was a minute left in [our game] and I heard everybody cheering and I'm like, 'What the hell, there's nothing going on,'" Penn point guard Michael Jordan said. "But then I heard the band cheering and I put two and two together." · Penn was not even the main beneficiary of Princeton's loss. That distinction belongs to Dartmouth, which was magically vaulted into the realm of "Ivy League contender." With an 8-2 Ivy record, the Big Green control their own fate in the title race. Wins over Penn and Princeton this weekend, and Brown and Yale next weekend, would earn the youthful squad -- Dartmouth starts two freshman, two sophomores and a junior -- a trip to the NCAAs. "I thought the timing was right," Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher said of Princeton's loss. "[The game against Penn last Tuesday] was a hard game to recover from." Faucher is also the first to admit that the timing probably is not right for his team to sneak away with the Ivy title. In the first go around this season, Dartmouth lost 79-67 to Penn and 76-48 to Princeton. Having the home-court advantage this weekend will help but the Big Green should not be expected to wake up Sunday morning still sporting only two league losses. "We haven't proven we can beat Penn and Princeton and we have to do that," Faucher said. "I don't know if we are good enough to beat them. · Despite the hoopla surrounding Princeton's loss, neither Penn nor Princeton's outlook has changed much. Both teams still control their own destiny and Penn still will likely need to win at Jadwin in order to take the title. "Even before the weekend started you are still in control of your own destiny even after losing to Princeton, but having Yale knock them off makes it one game easier," Penn guard Matt Langel said. The loss does, however, make it more likely that the Penn-Princeton season finale will have title implications. Penn previously thought it needed to be perfect in its other Ivy League games to stay alive, but now the Quakers can drop one of their next four Ivy games and still be in the hunt when their bus pulls up to Jadwin Gymnasium. Princeton, meanwhile, can lose again and still win at home the final night of the season to force a one-game, neutral-site playoff. Since Ivy play began officially in 1957, there have been six playoffs to break a tie, with Princeton playing in each one and posting a 3-3 mark. Princeton has played Penn in each of the last three playoff games -- 1980, 1981 and 1996. The Quakers won in 1980 but the Tigers have grabbed the last two. · Once again Penn and Princeton are helping each other through the Ivy season by being travel partners. It's tough enough to play Penn and Princeton individually, but it's even more burdensome to always have to do it on back-to-back nights. "We knew [Yale] was either going to come out and have a great confidence level, or maybe they'd be a little bit flat, but probably not somewhere in between," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We talked about coming out with the same intensity as we had [against Princeton," Yale forward David Tompkins said. "Unfortunately it turned out to be all talk because we came out flat."

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