It should be a mighty fine Memorial Day or July 4 in the Jones house this year. All big brother James needed to have a shot at an Ivy League playoff for the second time in his eight seasons as Yale coach was a win over younger brother Joe's Columbia team.
James was 6-1 all time against Joe, had never lost to him at home and had won five straight overall.
But the Lions bludgeoned the Elis, leading by as many as 28 points en route to an 82-64 win.
Yale gave up a 17-0 run and trailed by at least six points for all but 16 seconds for the last 34 minutes of the game.
When the Elis meet Penn on Friday in Philadelphia, the Quakers will have an opportunity to clinch the Ivy League title at home. The Elis have lost to Penn in Philadelphia for the last 10 years. There still is a chance for an Ivy League playoff, though, if Yale sweeps the weekend, and Penn loses at least one of its other two games (against 7-16 combined Brown and Princeton).
What is interesting about Yale's killing loss is that it came at home.
In James Jones's tenure, the Elis are 39-17 at home in Ivy League play, but are only 22-32 on the road.
This year, Yale is 4-1 on the road and is 5-2 at home. In Jones's eight seasons, the Elis have never had a better road record than home record in conference play.
But if they are to have any hope for a postseason berth, Yale will have to do that this season.
The break-even mark. Columbia, meanwhile, has clinched its first .500 season since 1992-93 with its current 14-12 mark. To get to .500 in Ivy play for the first time since 2000-01, Columbia would have to beat Harvard and Dartmouth at home this weekend.
Cornell has also secured its first .500 season in a long time (since 1996-97) with its split last weekend.
The Big Red, at 8-4 in conference play, have also clinched a winning Ivy season for the third straight year.
Cornell is mathematically still alive for the Ivy title. It will need to win its two games, have Penn lose all three of its contests, and have Yale lose to Princeton. Then there would be a three-way playoff at 10-4.
Streaking Green. Dartmouth almost gave the Elis a ton of help Saturday night by coming ever so close to shocking Penn, falling 80-78.
The 78 points were the most the Big Green have scored this year in regulation; the other high was 74 against James Madison in December. Dartmouth hit that number twice last season, but has not broken it since a 98-87 double-overtime loss to UC-Davis in Dec. 2004.
In regulation, the streak goes back to a 95-60 win over Tufts in Dec. 2003, and in Division I regulation play, Dartmouth has not broken 78 points since an 86-74 win over Stetson on Dec. 28, 2002. The streak is currently at 126 games and counting.
The Big Green also came very close to sweeping the Penn-Princeton weekend, after a 53-43 win over the Tigers last Friday.
It would have been Dartmouth's first such sweep since the 1988-89 season, when the Big Green finished 10-4 in Ivy play.
However, Dartmouth did sweep Princeton this season, giving the Big Green their third win in their last six games against the Tigers. Before that, Dartmouth had lost five straight to Princeton, and had not swept the Tigers since 1945-46.
The Big Green's 45-44 win in New Jersey earlier this season was also the first time Dartmouth had won in Jadwin Gymnasium in 20 years.
Uncharted waters. Speaking of Princeton, the Tigers are in some unfamiliar territory. Their sweep at the hands of Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend catapulted them to their ninth Ivy loss, the first time in the Ivy League's history that Princeton has fallen that low. The previous worst season was a 6-8 campaign two seasons ago, Joe Scott's first as Tigers coach.
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