Ivy Basketball Preview, 2/16
All eyes will be on the Palestra this weekend when first-place Penn hosts Columbia and second-place Cornell in Philadelphia. The Quakers (15-8, 6-1 Ivy), coming off of an ugly win over arch rivals Princeton (10-11, 1-6) Tuesday night, enter the second half of Ivy action with only one League loss, coming at the hands of Yale. Penn, winners of three straight, handled Cornell 74-56 last month up in Ithaca on their way to completing the New York road sweep. A second Columbia-Cornell sweep would put the Quakers in the driving seat for their third Ivy League title in as many years.
Cornell (13-9, 6-2), coming off a home sweep of Brown and Yale last weekend, look to snap a 17-game losing streak against Penn in the Palestra and a 16-game skid to the Quakers overall. The Big Red are led by a pair of terrific freshman in Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale. Wittman, the son of Minnesota Timberwolves interim head coach Randy Wittman, leads all Ivy freshman in scoring with 15.1 points per game, while Dale, leads all Ivy rookies in assists with 3.73 per game. The Cornell-Penn matchup can be seen Saturday night at 7 pm on the YES Network with the Cornell-Princeton game airing tonight at 7 pm on ESPNU.
In other League action, Yale (10-11, 6-2) plays host to Dartmouth (8-13, 3-5) and Harvard (10-12, 3-5) in New Haven. The Bulldogs, who hold a share of second-place, had won five straight before falling to Cornell 60-59 last Saturday in Ithaca. They are paced by Ivy Co-Player of the Week Eric Flato. The junior lead guard is currently averaging 17.2 points in Ivy contests, good for second in the League behind Mark McAndrew of Brown (7-16, 2-6). Yale, who swept Dartmouth and Harvard three weeks ago on the road, look to repeat that effort in hopes of staying in the hunt for the Ivy crown.
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