As we head towards the end of the 2011-12 Small Conference Games of the Day, we turn our focus tonight back to the Ivy League. Harvard appeared to be on the verge of locking up the Ivy championship and automatic bid last week, until they fell at Princeton Friday night and followed that up with a loss at Penn on Saturday. As a result, the Crimson are now a game behind Princeton in the loss column. This weekend Harvard hosts Columbia and Cornell to conclude their regular season, while Princeton travels to Yale and Brown. The Tigers also have a game left Tuesday evening at Penn. If Princeton wins their final three games they will take the NCAA tournament bid. However, should they lose at least one, the door opens again for Harvard, and we have the possibility of a one game playoff next weekend to determine the automatic bid winner.
Tonight’s SCGD is Princeton’s first of its three road games to end the season, a 7:00 PM Eastern game in New Haven, Connecticut against the Yale Bulldogs. These same two teams met back on February 9 at Princeton, and Yale pulled off the upset 69-65. Therefore, this is hardly a guaranteed win for Princeton. In fact, this may arguably be their most difficult of their three remaining games. Yale is led offensively by Matt Townsend who is averaging 14.7 points per game and Austin Morgan who is third in the nation in free throw percentage at 90.8%. Princeton is led by Ian Hummer who became the Tiger’s second all-time leading scorer last time out with 1577 career points.