Brown at Pennsylvania, 7:00 PM Eastern, ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com
It is the first weekend of February which means that the Ivy League has (finally) moved into its normal Friday-Saturday game schedule from here on out. Over the course of these last five weeks to the regular season, each Ivy League team will play games on both Friday and Saturday nights as a pair of travel partners hit the road to take on another pair of travel partners that are at home. This weekend Harvard and Dartmouth are at Cornell and Columbia, while Brown and Yale are at Princeton and Penn. Tonight’s Under the Radar Game of the Day features the Penn Quakers hosting the Brown Bears.
Penn enters tonight’s game at 3-0 in Ivy League play, half a game behind 4-0 Harvard (Penn has not yet played its second game against travel partner Princeton), and 13-6 overall. The majority of the Quakers’ metrics are tops in the Ivy League including a KPI of 151 and a JNG of 144. Their resume includes a handful of notable wins, including having become the first Ivy League team to ever win a road game at Dayton back on December 9 and a 4 overtime thriller at Monmouth back in November. Keep an eye on AJ Brodeur tonight, as he picked up his first double-double of the season (after several near misses) in a win last time out over Big Five rival St. Joseph’s.
Brown currently sits at 2-2 in Ivy League play and 9-8 overall. The Bears are tied with travel partner Yale for fourth place in the conference and, with the two teams having split their head-to-head series, look like they may be in a battle this season for the fourth and final spot in the Ivy League tournament field. Keep an eye on Desmond Cambridge tonight, as he led his team with 22 points in a loss last time out to Harvard. Also, Cambridge will give you the chance to ask yourself — how does a guy with this last name playing in the Ivy League end up at Brown and not Harvard?
NEWS AND NOTES
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-Wichita State fell at Temple last night, and with a lack of quality wins Wichita may not even end up in the top half of the bracket if they drop too many more against non-tournament teams. With SMU also losing at Tulsa, we’re looking at a possible scenario where there may be as few as 2 bids coming out of the American.
-Washington also picked up a nice (for now) home win against an Arizona State team that is also plummeting down the rankings. The Sun Devils may also end up in the bottom half of the bracket, which would have sounded preposterous back in December.
-The big UTR game last night was Middle Tennessee’s win at Old Dominion. They are for real. They have won a lot of games that were not easy to win (including last night’s) and I hope the committee agrees with me and realizes that they are good. They remain a half game above Western Kentucky atop the C-USA standings; WKU did struggle against UTEP but did end up victorious last night. Recall that UTEP was the last team to beat Middle in conference play last season.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-RHODE ISLAND AT VCU (A-10). Rhody visits VCU who has done well in A10 play, but is still about a hundred miles from making the NCAA Tournament. A loss by Rhody would harm their pride more than their profile at the moment.
-WESTERN MICHIGAN AT BUFFALO (MAC). Buffalo is also back in action and looking to rebound from their somewhat surprising loss at Kent State earlier this week.
-UTAH AT COLORADO (Pac-12). Utah has become a trendy pick among bracketologists as far as teams narrowly missing the field. Winning at Colorado can be difficult, but the Utes used up whatever margin for error they may have had earlier in the season.