Friday's Ivy Games

[superbook]

This is a tough card tonite in the Ivy, so I'm not going to post my picks all at once as I'm still looking at some things.

In my opinion, the best play in the Ivy tonight is:

Harvard +15

To understand tonight's game, first a little background.

The Ivy teams play 14 league games over seven weeks. They play back-to-back Friday/Saturday games with several scheduling exceptions.

The season is now half over.

Five teams remain in the hunt for the Ivy championship. Columbia, Cornell and Dartmouth are done. The Ivy championship is a big deal to these teams because the Ancient Eight is the only league in Division 1 without a post-season tourney. And so the league winner gets the automatic NCAA berth, the other teams are finished.

Here are the current Ivy standings of the contenders:

Yale: 7-1
Princeton: 5-2
Harvard 5-3
Penn 4-3
Brown 4-4

Yale is the only team in true control of their destiny. If they win all their remaining games they win the title. But history is not on their side: the Killer P's (Princeton & Penn) have won the last 13 league championships and 40 of the 45 since the league was started in 1956.

IMO the title chase will come down to Penn, Princeton and Yale. Harvard and Brown will fall out after this weekend.

The goal of Penn this weekend has to be to just win both games, something they haven't been able to do yet this Ivy league season, as they've split all three of their Friday/Saturday Ivy weekends.

Penn is coming off an emotional 62-38 blow-out of their arch rival Princeton at Jadwin Gym on Tuesday night and there is the chance of a little letdown in this game tonight.

Penn lost their first match-up this season vs Harvard in Boston by 78-75 in OT. The two teams were even at both the half and at the end of regulation. Harvard's 6-6 F Sam Winter out-muscled Penn's more talented Ugonna Onyewke on the boards and Harvard's Patrick Harvey hit for 28 going 9-15 from the field including 4-5 from the arc. Harvey also got Toole into foul trouble limiting the Penn star to only 25 minutes.

Harvard is mentally tougher than in past years, they won't roll over on the road.

Harvard is 2-1 ATS on the road while Penn is 2-6 ATS at home.

Harvard is a pretty decent Ivy team and the Crimson should hang around in this game, and I just don't see revenge for the earlier OT loss to be a big factor for Penn. The Quakers just need to go 2-0 this weekend. Penn is also coming off a very emotional win on Tuesday night and may come out a little slow.

 

[superbook]

Princeton -14.5

Princeton beat Dartmouth by nine, 57-46 in Hanover despite shooting only 19-44 from the field.

That game was less than 24 hours after Princeton beat Harvard 50-48 on the road in the final seconds of a tough one and where the Tigers lost their leading scorer Andre Logan for the year to a torn ACL.

Dartmouth's Flinder Boyd scored 20 points against Princeton, the most the Tigers have allowed to any Ivy opponent this season. Boyd is a good player but I think he was getting a lot of open looks without Logan in the game.

Princeton is coming off an embarassing big loss to Penn and perhaps as important, they have two straight Ivy losses. The Tigers have shot just 29.4% from the field in their 6 games since returning from first semester exams.

I think Princeton will try to right the ship tonight against an extremely poor rebounding Dartmouth team which has nothing to play for.

Stat of the Day: Princeton has won 50 straight home games against Ivy teams other than Penn and 25 straight games at home over Dartmouth and Harvard (who they play tomorrow night).

 

[Dr Raider]

Nice work
All these numbers make me dizzy
doesn't anyone use gut feelings anymore?...

 

[superbook]

Brown +3

My record in Ivy games posted at MJs is 22-10-1; five of those ten losses were on Brown.

Brown was picked to finish second in the Ivy this season, they had all five starters returning from a team which almost won the Ivy championship last season.

Freshman Jason Forte (his brother plays for the Celtics) has been a great surprise and Hunt is a good scorer but the team's lack of defense and rebounding has really hurt them.

Brown is coming off a weekend of losses to Penn and Princeton in Providence. But I think Brown played better than the scores may indicate and might turn things around tonight in NYC.

Columbia is a team known for playing tough at home, but they're coming off of two home losses to Harvard and Dartmouth, both games losses ATS. The loss to Dartmouth was especially bad, Columbia shot just just 19-51 from the floor including 5-20 from the arc and were outscored by ten in the second half by one of the worst teams in the Ivy.

Columbia plays a tough defense, its opponents are averaging just 50 ppg in their L5.

I think Brown is an underrated team and in a game where both teams are playing for pride (even though at 4-4 Brown might still think they're in it) I look for the Bruins to keep it close in a low-scoring game and maybe even win this game outright.

 

[superbook]

Cornell +7


Dr. Raider, my gut tells me that Cornell is going to upset Yale in this one.

Yale is a great team, but they're young. The Bulldogs have no seniors and an all-freshman backcourt.

They're currently atop the Ivy and these kids are probably laying awake at night dreaming about playing in March Madness.

IMO it's not going to happen for Yale this weekend, and I'll bet they lose SU either to Cornell tonight or Columiba tomorrow.

If you want my numbers on this game, check our McIrish's thread where I posted them last night.

If you like Dartmouth, take the 17.5 at Camelot.

 

[Unicorn]

Good luck on Harvard. I promised myself I wouldn't bet on them again after losing to Cornell. If Harvard wins that game, they're really in good shape for the Ivy. Although, if Penn is going to take a breather from the pressure they're under to win the league, it should be in this game. Go get 'em and pass the slide rule...

 

[superbook]

Unicorn --

I hear you on Harvard-Cornell. Harvard had a number of chances to win that one SU but didn't.

And they owe me big, I had an Ivy four teamer that night broken up by Harvard which would have paid $1500.

- Jon

 

[nighthorse]

Are you sure that's the Cornell/Yale game in your gut? What did you have for lunch?

That would be a real shocker in my book. But I've never seen either team and don't live anywhere near there, so.......I'll go with your gut. My brain didn't do so well last night.

 

[superbook]

Nighthorse--

It wouldn't be the first time that the worst team in the league beat the #1 team.

But please note that Harvard is my best bet here. I hate going against Raymond and Goat and others with Cornell.

BTW I had a hot dog with the works at the Umbrella Club for lunch, so if Yale wins by 30 I'll blame it on food poisoning.

 

[Nickelback]

My two cents on Cornell/Yale:

Take a look at the first meeting where Cornell only lost by 5. . .

They shot 55% from the field including 55% 3 pointers. This exceeds all expectations as their averages are 37% overall and under 30% shooting the 3. BUT THEY STILL LOST BY 5! Yale even shot a little below their season average. The difference is that Yale went to the free throw line 31 times while Cornell went only 12.

Can we expect Yale to have the same success going to the line? Yes, I believe we can because they are far superior underneath the basket. Cornell cannot compete with them which is why they are forced to foul instead of giving up easy baskets. Can we expect Cornell to stay in the game by shooting over 50% again? Not likely given that Cornell shoots on average 37% and Yale gives up an average of 42%.

In the end, Cornell played the game of their lives against Yale the first time and still lost by 5. It will take a severe letdown after wins against Princeton and Penn for Yale to lose this game IMO. Also, one has to be crazy to think Yale is looking ahead to Columbia when the first meeting was so close! Also, its not like Columbia is at the top of the conference like Princeton, Penn, and Harvard. . . I could see Yale looking ahead if it was one of these three teams that they are playing on Saturday. But not after beating this Cornell team by only 5 at home.

A win by Cornell tonight would be one of the largest upsets that I have ever seen on paper.

 

[superbook]

Nickelback --

Very articulate writing, many good points.

Just to clarify,

I don't think Cornell will necessarily win this game SU, I didn't play the ML, I just took to lose by less than seven.

Also, by look-ahead, I wasn't categorizing Columbia in the same league as the P's but I was simply referring to them having to go on the road to play another team less than 24 hours later. A look-ahead to another game in general not the team in specific, even though Columbia is pretty tough at home.

gl

 

[Nickelback]

Wanted to claify as well that I didn't mean to call you crazy about the look ahead factor. . . I was actually referring to others' posts that I have seen on other sites (and no, not jonruns!).

Just curious superbook, what do you project Cornell's chances are of winning this game outright? Would you give them a 30% chance?

 

[superbook]

I give them a 10% chance of winning outright.

Maybe I am crazy but in the first game Yale seemed to take the win for granted and played to Cornell's level. Yale started out 6-0 and Cornell didn't even score for the first 3 1/2 minutes. Then Cornell started hitting the 3s, a kid Jacques who doesn't even play that much was bombing them in. Where was the D? Yale had to hit a basket at the buzzer at the end of the first half just to tie it. Then Yale came out of the locker room and went on a 17-2 run, but Cornell got back in it and was actually only down by 3 with a few seconds to go.

Cornell has little talent and is very young but they just seem to hang around and be there at the end.

But tomorrow I give Columbia a better than 50% chance of beating Yale in my 'hood. Columbia played like chit last weekend in home losses to Dartmouth and Harvard because half their team had the flu.

Columbia is very tough at home and I think they'll surprise Yale tomorrow night.

The last time Yale swept Columbia was the 1989/1990 season.

Have you seen anyone else on Cornell? I haven't, I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

good luck tonite

 

[Nickelback]

Interesting that you give Cornell bout a 10% chance of winning yet are willing to take 7 points which means you give at least a 51% chance of Cornell staying within 7.

Perhaps this is a flaw in my capping because I consider a team that has roughly a 90% chance of winning a game to be a very solid bet when the line is 7 or below. It might be that I rely too much on fouling with a minute to go and a team up by 3. Opinions on this from anybody???

Best of luck tonight superbook. . . except of course with Cornell

 

[superbook]

Nickelback --

It looks like it's me that its my capping that is flawed. I should have listened to you guys on Cornell or else played the first half lines where I would have been 4-0.

Harvard and Cornell died in the second half, Princeton up by 20 with 6:00 to go forgot to close the door.

Sorry guys, guess I was due for a 1-3 night. My sincere apologies.

Let's get it back next Friday.

- Jon

 

[Nickelback]

Superbook,

I don't think your capping is flawed. . . we rarely disagree as it is but there has been times when you have been right and I have been wrong. Luckily for me I happened to be correct this time as I had more on this game than I probably should have.

Good luck tomorrow. . . hopefully we can all come out winners. . .

 

[RobertBIrish]

I don't think your capping is flawed at all I asked your opinion because I respect you you are one of the best Ivy Leaugue cappers around I played Yale -5.5 and wanted to know your opinion and after you made your comments about the game I went back and went over the game 5 more times from every angle I could and I came up with Yale every time. THE ONLY THING that worried me was that you were on the other side, we all have losing days and I will always watch for your comments on the Ive Leauge because I totally respect your opinion on them!