Roundtable: What we learned from the first weekend of full Ivy play

• TWEET
• SHARE
• SHARE

The first weekend full of Ivy League doubleheaders is over for both men’s and women’s basketball. So what did we learn? Our editors examine the major takeaways from a hectic week in the Ancient Eight.

Senior Sports Editor Steven Tydings: The biggest thing to come out of this past Friday and Saturday was how easy the rest of Ivy play is going to be for Harvard men’s basketball. The Crimson defeated Princeton, basically eliminating the Tigers then and there from title contention, before torching Penn basketball on Saturday night.

The Penn game was particularly impressive, as a three-point barrage led by Laurent Rivard pushed Harvard way ahead before the Quakers could even catch their collective breath.

Sure, Harvard is and already was the favorite to take the Ivy title, but it looked as if teams like Princeton and Columbia (and to a lesser extent, Penn) would give a little bit of a challenge to the Crimson.

Yet those three teams went a combined 0-6.

So if Harvard can sweep Yale and Brown next week while playing at home, the Crimson will be up two games in the standings less than halfway through their Ivy slate.

In other words, sounds like it will be smooth sailing for the NCAA Tournament-bound Harvard squad.

Sports Editor Riley Steele: While Harvard may have demonstrated that there is no chance any team steals the throne from the two-time defending Ivy champions, this weekend was the complete antithesis for Penn men’s hoops.

To put the Quakers Ivy weekend doubleheader in perspective, it says a lot when a 30-point defeat somehow isn’t the lowlight for a team.

Many expected Penn to drop its game against the Crimson. What was more surprising, however, was the dud the Quakers laid against Dartmouth on Friday night.

Despite starting the game strong and taking a lead into halftime, Penn wound up losing to a team playing without Gabas Maldunas, the Big Green’s leading scorer and rebounder this season.

The weekend seemed to be an example of Penn’s season in a nutshell. The Quakers committed 18 turnovers against Dartmouth that cost them a winnable game against a lesser team and were outscored by 33 from beyond-the-arc against Harvard.

Like so many times before, the Red and Blue took two steps back after seemingly taking a step forward over the past few weeks.

For Jerome Allen and the rest of the team, wins over NJIT are no longer going to cut it. Penn came up short (again) against Ivy opponents, and now have next-to-no chance to win the Ancient Eight this season. It’s pretty clear that Penn has nothing left to play for except pride and to save Jerome Allen’s job.

But if this weekend’s games taught us anything, it’s that the Quakers may not be able to do either.

Associate Sports Editor Holden McGinnis: On the women’s side of the game, this first Ivy weekend solidified the fact that this is truly a three-horse race for the title. It took only two games to break wide open a race that many preseason predictors easily handed to Princeton. The weekend started with a significant upset as Harvard went into Princeton and took down the four-time defending champion, 78-68. This was the first home Ivy loss since the 2008-09 season for the Tigers, a team that had been nothing short of dominant over the past few seasons.

However, the Crimson headed down to the Palestra the following night, and found themselves outmatched by Penn, as the Quakers won, 67-38. The win was highlighted by yet another dominating performance from freshman center Sydney Stipanovich, who has to be considered the biggest reason Penn has jumped into contention this season.

Considering Penn’s loss to Princeton, this race is clearly wide open as each of these teams has been dominant for long stretches, yet lost in decisive fashion to one of the other contenders. The way they’ve been playing lately, the Quakers have to like their chances, as they’ve saved some of their best basketball for this Ivy portion of the season, and proved it against Dartmouth and Harvard.