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For Jon Teitel’s interview with Mark Monteith and Alan Karpick about Hall of Fame coach John Wooden – CLICK HERE
Princeton (12-5, 4-0 Ivy) at Yale (13-4, 3-1 Ivy) – 7:00 PM EST (ESPN+)
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to an institution of past, present and future leaders of the world – the Yale Bulldogs will play host to the Princeton Tigers in an Ivy league matchup. The Tigers swept both Columbia and Cornell last weekend; they also have a sweep of Penn under their belts to put them in prime position for one of the four slots in the season-ending Ivy League Tournament to be played at Yale come March. Their other notable win was at Arizona State back in December; their only losses were at St. John’s at Duke as well as a Saint Joe’s team that was healthy earlier in the year. Devin Cannady leads the Tigers with 19.5 points a game and 6.2 rebounds a game.
Yale more or less held serve (by Ivy League standards) with a split of their road trip last weekend; they lost at Harvard but were able to win at Dartmouth last weekend. They also swept their travel partner Brown earlier in January. Their only other losses were all respectable – at Memphis, at Duke and at Vermont. Their best noncon win was against the Miami Hurricanes. Miye Oni leads the Bulldogs with 16.8 PPG, 6.3 RPG and 3.8 APG.
NEWS AND NOTES
– It was quite a notable night in the Pac-12 last night. Washington won without too much difficulty at Arizona to put the Huskies head and shoulders above the rest of the league. Arizona State was the real surprise last night – they dug an early hole at home against a Washington State team that had only one conference win and never recovered en route to a 91-70 loss against the Cougars. Time will tell if this is a fatal blow to the Sun Devils’ at-large tournament hopes; they absolutely must beat Washington at least once this season. Saturday night is their only opportunity in the regular season to do so.
– Iowa continued their string of quality wins in the Big 10; they got a decent road win at an Indiana team that was coming off of a monster win at Michigan State last weekend.
– Houston and Cincinnati have separated themselves as the class of the American; the Cougars won fairly comfortably at UCF and the Bearcats did have to mount a 2nd half comeback before winning at Memphis last night. South Florida is also in the midst of a nice turnaround season under Brian Gregory; they’re an NCAA longshot but may actually have decent NIT hopes this season. The Bulls hit a game-winner in the closing seconds to get a 1-point win at SMU.
– Wofford needed extra time, but got a big win at East Tennessee State last night in the SoCon. The Terriers get more brownie points towards a potential at-large bid should they end up not winning their conference tournament. UNC-Greensboro also beat Samford at home and remains a game and a half behind Wofford for first place.
– Radford’s Carlik Jones had quite the night. First he hit a game-tying three point shot to send their game against Hampton to overtime and ended up finishing the game with a buzzer-beater 3 to give the Highlanders a road win.
– New Mexico State was living the high life in the WAC last night. They were down two late in OT after Bakersfield took the lead with under 10 seconds to play, but Trevelin Queen hit a buzzer-beating 3 to give the Aggies a crucial road win at Bakersfield and put themselves two games ahead of the Roadrunners in the process. They also got unexpected help from Texas-Rio Grande Valley; the Vaqueros pulled a stunner with a win at Grand Canyon last night to give New Mexico State the outright WAC lead by a full game against the Lopes.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-COLUMBIA AT HARVARD (Ivy League). The Crimson are tied with Yale for second place in the Ivy League right now and need to hold serve at home this week to maintain a top-4 finish in the Ivy.
-PENN AT BROWN (Ivy League). It’s an even more critical night for the Quakers – if they slip up tonight, they’ll fall even further behind Cornell for the 4th and final spot in the Ivy League Tournament.
-CANISIUS AT RIDER (MAAC). Rider suddenly finds itself tied with Monmouth for first place in the conference after losses in their last three road games. They did win the first matchup on the road against Canisius earlier this season, though.
-CORNELL AT DARTMOUTH (Ivy League). The Big Red have a 1-game lead over Penn for 4th place and have a winnable game that they must take advantage of tonight.
-GEORGIA STATE AT LOUISIANA (Sun Belt). Georgia State now finds themselves tied for first place with Texas State again after losing at Louisiana-Monroe earlier in the week coupled with Texas State’s comeback win against Appalachian State last night.
-KENT STATE AT AKRON (MAC). The Wagon Wheel’s first matchup this year will be played tonight – the Golden Flashes are a perfect 8-0 in games decided by 5 points or less this season. Winning at Akron never comes easy, though.