Pregame reading

With five conference losses already, it appears that even a home sweep of Yale and Brown this weekend won't be enough to vault the Quakers back into Ivy-title contention. As my boss Zach Klitzman wrote in Thursday's paper, that's a noteworthy development for both Penn and the conference, no matter if you interpret it as a sign of a newly leveled playing field, a Penn team that is too young to win, or of an unusually mediocre year league-wide.

Penn's five remaining games still mean a lot to the program, of course. But for Ivy League basketball as a whole, what matters is sending a strong representative to the NCAA Tournament. That team's showing in the first-round Tournament game ultimately determines its place in Ivy League lore, and a good showing -- even, dare I say it, a win -- would do more to raise the league's national profile than any hypothetical conference tournament on ESPNU ever could.

In that regard, it's best if Cornell wins the league again this year, which it is nearly a lock to do. The Big Red's current RPI is 116, according to realtimerpi.com; the next closest Ivy is Yale, at 227, out of 343 Division I teams. So, as any Ivy League fan, I'll be rooting for Steve Donahue's club to win its four remaining games. Their magic number is three.