If you’re a fan of the Eagles (the band, not the disappointment of a football team), you know exactly the motto that traveling partners Penn and Princeton are living by this January: take it easy. So while the Quakers are playing weekly Big 5 opponents to the wire and Princeton is busy eating Cheetos (or studying for finals — who schedules exams a month after classes end, anyway?) on its collective couch during an 18-day layoff, it’s up to the other six Ivy teams to entertain.
Wittman’s cookie crumbles. Last week we discussed the plummet of former Ivy powerhouse Cornell to near obscurity: From Sweet Sixteens to Sweet Nothings.
This week the Big Red’s woes continued both on and off the Ivy court.
Forli, a second-tier Italian League basketball team, axed the contract of Cornell star and recent graduate Ryan Wittman due to a “disagreement.” (Cake vs. pie, anybody?)
While Forli sits in second-to-last place in the ol’ LegaDue, Wittman’s Big Red sit in dead last after opening Ivy play with a loss to Columbia in The Basement, a.k.a. Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium. And though they may have left the Big Apple, it’s hard to see the Big Red climbing out of the basement any time soon. They play Columbia again on Saturday.
Go go gadget Agho. The Lions’ win over Cornell marked the first time Columbia beat the Big Red in four years. With 25 points, junior Noruwa Agho led the charge as Columbia continues to be on the up.
Why, you ask, is a team that finished 5-9 last year in the League all of a sudden a contender?
Because first-year coach Kyle Smith is devoting night and day to his program, except for when he’s seeing Jersey Boys with his in-laws, as the Columbia Spectrum blog reports he did over winter break.
Yale takes giant leap. Moving on to the middle of the Ivy pack, Yale topped Brown Saturday, 69-64, in both teams’ Ivy openers.
The Bulldogs were led by breakout star Greg Mangano, who at 6-foot-10 has replaced Jeff Foote as the Ancient Eight’s token oaf. Perhaps inspired by the recent firing of NFL coach and second-cousin-twice-removed Eric Mangini, the junior posted a monster line of 23 points and 17 rebounds against the Bears.
Yale’s Man-genius is averaging 14.6 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game this season — up from 7.5, 5.5 and 2 in those categories last year — making him a huge candidate for the Ivy’s Most Improved and Most Likely to Be the Next Chris Dudley awards, if either existed.
An Oscar-worthy win. Not to be outdone by their bitter rivals, Harvard edged Atlantic-10 contender George Washington Saturday, 67-62.
This Saturday, the Crimson take on Dartmouth — which dropped to 4-11 after yesterday’s loss to Colgate — in a rematch of a Jan. 8, 15-point Crimson romp.
After The Social Network’s Jan. 11 DVD release, Harvard’s rallying cry is as timely as ever: ‘You Don’t Get To March Madness Without Beating A Few Ivy Doormats.’
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