Heading into Saturday’s game against Brown, Princeton looked to be the strongest challenge to defending Ivy champion Cornell.
After all, the Tigers dispatched Harvard earlier this season and cruised past Yale, 82-58, on national television Friday night.
So it appeared they would have little trouble against a Brown squad which they defeated by 17 points three weeks ago.
But after the night before avenging their controversial loss to Penn, the Bears entered the contest with a renewed energy. They ultimately pulled out a 57-54 victory over the Tigers.
As a result, Princeton (16-7, 7-2 Ivy) now sits one conference loss behind Cornell, with Harvard (18-6, 7-3) close on its heels.
And unless the Tigers secure a win against the Big Red Friday, their title hopes will likely slip away for good.
Meanwhile, Brown’s victory gave the Bears (10-17, 4-6) their second ever road sweep of Princeton and Penn, two teams that have traditionally dominated Ivy men’s basketball.
Solid free throw shooting sealed the deal for Brown as the team made 18 of its 19 attempts from the line including 6-for-6 shooting from senior Steve Gruber.
It was Gruber who iced the victory for the Bears, sinking two shots from the charity stripe to bring his team ahead by three with eight seconds left on the clock.
Senior Matt Mullery led Brown in scoring with 15 points and posted eight rebounds.
Being Green just got a little easier After suffering seven straight defeats in Dartmouth’s first set of Ivy games, it looked as if interim coach Mark Graupe would go a whole season without a conference win.
And with the team facing Columbia and Cornell opponents that handed it two crushing losses at the end of January, it looked like the Big Green would be extending their seven-game losing streak to nine.
But despite being held scoreless for the first nine-and-a-half minutes of Friday’s game against Columbia, Dartmouth (5-19, 1-9) had a strong second-half performance that ended the team’s skid with a 48-44 win.
The Big Green’s strong defensive effort held the Lions (9-15, 3-7) to 31 percent from the floor and shut down guards Noruwa Agho and Niko Scott.
The pair — which contributed 34 points in Columbia’s victory over Penn Feb. 13 — only managed a combined 14 points against Dartmouth.
Though the Big Green still lost 88-70 to Cornell the following night, the team still carried some momentum from its first win into the game.
In the losing effort, Dartmouth had its highest scoring effort all season, a feat which is even more impressive considering that the teams’ last meeting ended with a 34-point victory for Cornell.
More silverware for Wittman After a standout performance this weekend, Cornell senior Ryan Wittman has received his sixth Ivy Player of the Week honor this season.
With 50 percent shooting from the field, the 6-foot-7 forward proved crucial to Cornell’s 79-70 win Friday over Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.
In front of over a dozen NBA scouts, Wittman drained six of his 12 attempts from behind the arc and became the Ivy League’s first player to reach 350 career three-pointers. His 27 points on the night also brought him to sixth-place on the All Ivy scoring chart.
Wittman’s biggest shot of the game came with 8 minutes left on the clock, when a shot from behind the arc brought Cornell’s lead back to double digits following a 12-0 Harvard run.
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