Ivy League Roundup: Penn takes down Harvard, claims league lead

By Joel Alderman
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Updated: February 25, 2018

180208 University of Pennsylvania – Men’s Basketball vs Harvard

Penn 74, Harvard 71 (6,586)

The largest crowd of the season in the Ivy League was in the Penn Palestra on Senior Night as the Quakers broke the first place tie with Harvard and took sole possession of first place. Penn (11-1), avenged an earlier defeat at the hands of Harvard (10-2). Since then the Quakers have won four straight and nine of their last 10.

AJ Brodeur had a double-double (17 points and 12 rebounds) as Penn led 70-65 with 29 seconds to go. The Crimson cut it to 73-71 with 3.1 seconds showing. Harvard’s Seth Towns had a game-high 22 points.

Key to Penn’s win was holding Harvard’s 6-foot-9 sophomore Chris Lewis to nine points, a night after he had a career-high 25 against Princeton.

“I thought it was a great college basketball game,” the Penn coach Steve Donahue said. “There are very few places like this on a Saturday night in February and I am grateful that I am part of it.”

Harvard’s mentor, Tommy Amaker complimented the Quakers in these words: “Penn is a tremendous basketball team with weapons and shooters and are very hard to defense. I thought they were very deserving of the victory tonight.”

Yale 83, Columbia 73 (1,722)

Yale not only qualified for the Ivy League post-season tournament, but it clinched the third seed behind Penn and Harvard by defeating Columbia at Levien Gym in New York. Sophomore Miye Oni had 26 points, all but two in the second half. Oni nearly had a triple-double, with nine rebounds and eight assists.

“He figured out he couldn’t be stopped going to the basket,” said his coach, James Jones. During one stretch in the second half, he made 16 straight Yale points. He was 10-for-10 at the foul line, and the team did not miss a single free throw in 17 attempts.

The Lions were paced by Mike Smith’s 21 points. Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Princeton are still in the running for the fourth seed, which may have to be decided by a tie-breaker.

Yale led by 10 at the half, saw its advantage shrink to three with 7:43 to go, then regrouped to go up by 13.

The only bad news for Yale was the renewed inactivity of its injury-prone captain, Mikai Mason. After missing all of last season and only coming back for part of one game until after 25 were played in 2017-18, Mason suffered another injury (knee) in practice last week and did not suit up for the two games this weekend. No report has been issued by Yale when or if he will be on the floor in the games next weekend or in the Ivy Tournament.

Cornell 73, Brown 68 (1,642)

Cornell outscored Brown 8-1 in the last 2:04 to end with its five-point win at home. Both teams, along with Columbia and Princeton, are still in contention for fourth place and the Ivy League Tournament, going into next weekend’s final regular season games.

Brown (4-8) was hurt when its most productive scorer, freshman Desmond Cambridge, was tagged with three personal fouls in the first six minutes of the game. He managed only 11 points, all in the second half which began with Brown up by four.

Another Bears’ freshman, Tamenang Choh, had his first career double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Brown had its last lead on a Cambridge layup, 66-65 and 2:22 left to play. But the Red finished with an 8-2 run.

Matt Morgan had 17 for Cornell (5-7).

Princeton 64, Dartmouth 47 (2,754)

Princeton snapped an embarrassing seven-game losing streak in the league, but still is in an unfamiliar sixth place tie with Brown, each with 4-8 records. The eight losses are one more than its total for the past three seasons and are in marked contrast to a year ago when the Tigers were the undefeated Ivy champion.

Amir Bell, one of the Princeton players honored at Jadwin Gym on Senior Night, reached the 1,000 career scoring mark with 17 points, two more than he needed. His 3-pointer with 7:02 left gave the Tigers a 57-28 lead.