No Time For Small Talk

Hey, how are you today?

TigerBlog is fine. And that's it for the small talk today.

It's too big a weekend for any of that right now.

There will definitely be Ivy League championships awarded this weekend in men's and women's fencing, as the Ivy League round robins will be held at Harvard. This weekend will also have a huge impact on the Ivy League wrestling race, and there could be a championship won by Sunday night.

There are also big games in basketball and hockey for men and women, as well as swimming, tennis, squash and track and field. If you like there are also lacrosse scrimmages, for the men tomorrow and the women Sunday.

HERE is the complete weekend schedule.

TB will start with fencing.

There are five nationally ranked men's Ivy teams and five nationally ranked women's Ivy teams, and each team on both sides will fence against all of the other Ivy teams in two days at Harvard.

On the men's side, the No. 1 team in the country is Columbia, followed by No. 2 Harvard. Princeton comes into the event ranked sixth.

To borrow from the preview, Princeton's men have won four Ivy titles in the last 10 years, in 2010, 2012, 2016 and 2017. The women have won seven times in the last 10 years, including annually from 2010-14 as well as 2016 and 2017.

You can read the entire preview, which includes match times and all necessary links, HERE.

If you don't know anything else about the women's rankings, know that Princeton is ranked No. 1 in the country and Columbia is ranked No. 2 in the country and the two are separated in the most recent poll by one point.

And at the Ivy fencing championships, anything can happen. Often there are three-way ties for the championship, and in some years three-way ties on both sides.

Now about that wrestling weekend.

This is the background: Cornell has won the last 17 Ivy League wrestling champoinships.

These are current national rankings: Princeton is No. 16, Cornell is No. 17.

The two meet Sunday at Jadwin Gym at 1. This is after Princeton hosts Columbia at 4 in Dillon Gym in a match that can be seen on ESPNU. As for Cornell, the Big Red are at Penn Saturday.

The current Ivy League standings have Cornell at 3-0 and Princeton and Penn both at 2-0. There are six Ivy schools who have wrestling teams, so each school has five regular season league matches. That means that Cornell will be done by the end of the weekend.

A Big Red sweep, and that adds up to 18 straight.

On the other hand, two wins by Princeton and Penn (home against Columbia Sunday) would set up a winner-take-all showdown Saturday in Princeton for the league title.

There can also be co-championships and even a three-way championship, depending on the results this weekend. This is obviously a huge weekend, but when you throw in the chance for Princeton and/or Penn to end the long Big Red run, it's even bigger.

The men's hockey team is at Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow night. The women are home with RPI tonight and Union tomorrow night.

The women currently sit second in the ECAC standings with 25 points, four back of Cornell for first place and five up on Yale for fifth place. Why is fifth place a big deal?

Because the top four teams in the standings get home ice in the first round of the league tournament. There are only three weekends left in the regular season, by the way, on the women's side.

As for basketball, Princeton is unbeaten in both the men's and women's league standings as they prepare for Cornell tonight and Columbia tomorrow night. The women are home and the men are away, and if you listened to this week's "Conversations With Carla" podcast, then you know that this is the first time in 2020 the women are playing in Jadwin Gym.

In fact, the last home game prior to tonight was Dec. 29 against New Hampshire.

Princeton's women are 3-0 in the league, unbeaten along with 4-0 Yale. Cornell and Columbia are both 2-2.

For the men, Princeton and Yale are both 4-0, and Cornell and Columbia are both 1-3. Harvard, Penn and Brown are all 2-2.

Princeton plays Yale a week from today in both, with the men home and the women away.

The league races are going to start to sort themselves out in the next few weekends, but there are still five full weekends to go before the league tournament starts.

As you know, things are much more immediate in fencing and wrestling.