COLUMN: Ivy League is unpredictable

Nothing is certain in Ivy League basketball when February rolls around. A familiar memo has gone out to all the Ivy expert wannabes: On February 27 of last year, a certain writer traveled up to Cornell, not expecting the Big Red to pull one game from the Quakers. In that contest, the Big Red pulled even at the midway point of the second half. In a back-and-forth battle that went down to the wire, Cornell eked out a tough 73-70 win that officially ended Penn's title hopes and gave Princeton the 1998 Ivy League championship. Exactly one year later, Saturday night at the Palestra, the same end result almost reared its ugly head again, even though a loss would not have eliminated the Quakers. If not for Penn's added hustle, if not for the Quakers' clutch shooting down the stretch and if not for the urging of the Palestra faithful, this weekend would have blown the top off the proverbial pressure cooker. Must it always be this dramatic when we least expect it? Yes, when the opposition is firing on all cylinders, with nothing at stake on its part. "We didn't have anything to lose," Cornell forward Ray Mercedes said. "We just tried to imitate Princeton's last visit to the Palestra -- remain calm, pass the ball around, keep the offense going, stick some shots and leave it all out on the court." In a pressure-free position just the night before, Columbia succeeded just often enough against the Quakers' defense to keep Penn's lead in single digits for the first 15 minutes. But Penn's play against the Lions was an aberration with a simple solution and the Quakers eventually cruised to a 39-point win. "At half, it was a closer game [Penn 38-29] than we would've liked," Penn senior Paul Romanczuk said. "We didn't play as well defensively as we would've liked in the first half so we wanted to focus in on stopping them defensively since they were shooting 44 percent, above the 40 percent to which we wanted to hold them." In contrast, the Quakers defended Cornell closely -- on the outside, inside and at points in-between. However, the Big Red did not turn the ball over in the hot potato manner that the Lions did. Instead, Cornell held onto the opening lead -- for almost the entire game. As unbelievable as it seems, the same Penn team that rolled through January now found itself having led for only 1:38 of the first half. With Penn trailing by 10 at halftime, the crowd expected the Quakers to quickly bounce back on Senior Night and clinch their first 20-win season since the 1994-1995 Ivy championship campaign. But there was a problem. The visitors had answers for Jed Ryan's big three-pointers with 12 minutes remaining. Cornell persistently clung to a six-point lead, as the anticipated turnaround seemed like it might never come. It took that predicament to alarm the Palestra faithful. After all, a team's RPI ranking is a number that has been a popular topic on Penn's campus throughout the season, and Cornell entered the contest at 256th out of 310 Division I teams. Facing the possibility of a do-or-die contest tomorrow if they could not come back, the Quakers stared down the Big Red challenge. When it came time to determine the outcome of the game, Penn delivered, from Quakers guard Matt Langel's big three-pointer from the top of the key with under three minutes to go, to guard Michael Jordan's 3-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc in the second half. Meanwhile, Romanczuk continued his season-long dominance inside, racking up 20 points and further strengthening his case for a spot on the first-team All-Ivy squad. Also propelling the Quakers was the Palestra crowd, which sat in dead silence in the moments before Ryan's treys. When the team needed support during the last 10 minutes, however, the fans came through loud and clear. "I think it was a great experience for everyone in the stands," Ryan said. "That's what basketball this time of year is all about. Cornell played with a lot of emotion, and we matched it at the right time." The twists and turns of Saturday's game that set up the euphoric ending were a reminder that anything can happen in the Ivy League. With that uncertainty in mind heading into Tuesday's trip to Princeton, Penn coach Fran Dunphy once again emphasized on Saturday that shutting down a prescripted set of facets within the Tigers' game will not stop the Tigers themselves. "It's not [as if] the best way for us to beat [Princeton] is to get off to a good start," Dunphy said. "We like to make shots early, late and in the middle, in addition to defending well." No scripts, not much pre-planning, just five-on-five hoops -- beyond that, not even a crystal ball could chart what will happen on Tuesday. After all, nothing unusual is supposed to happen in the Ivy League. But January is long over. Expect the unexpected -- March Madness has arrived.