The Madness Begins

Well, the fields for the Ivy League basketball tournaments are set.

How that all happened? That was just madness, before the other kind even begins.

First, though, here is the schedule for this coming weekend at Jadwin Gym:

Friday
Women's semifinal - No. 1 Princeton vs. No. 4 Penn, 4:30
Women's semifinal - No. 2 Columbia vs. No. 3 Harvard, 7

Saturday
Men's semifinal - No. 1 Yale vs. No. 4 Cornell, 11 a.m.
Men's semifinal - No. 2 Princeton vs. No. 3 Penn, approximately 1:30 (30 minutes after the end of the first game)
Women's final - Princeton/Penn winner vs. Columbia/Harvard winner, 5

Sunday
Men's final - Yale/Cornell winner vs. Princeton/Penn winner, noon

In other words, if you enjoyed this weekend's Princeton-Penn games, you get to see the rematches this weekend.

Remember, the Ivy League tournament determines the league's automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. The league champions were crowned this past weekend.

For tournament ticket information, click HERE.

The craziness of this past weekend all started Friday night at the Palestra, where the Princeton women turned a 31-29 halftime deficit into a 71-54 victory, aided largely by a 27-7 third quarter burst. Kaitlyn Chen led Princeton with 27 points as she continues to build her legacy as one of the best clutch players the program has ever seen and, for that matter, simply one of the best players it's ever seen.

As for the Princeton women, the win concluded a 12-0 finish to the Ivy League season after opening losses at Harvard and home against Columbia. Princeton knew it needed to win every single one of them to have any chance at a fifth-straight league title, and that's what the team did. Only one of those games, the one last weekend at home against Harvard, was by a margin less than double figures.

The reason Princeton had no margin for error was Columbia, who, after losing to Penn the night after its win at Jadwin, cruised through the rest of the league except for a loss at home against Princeton. When the Tigers came back to defeat Penn Friday, Columbia needed to beat Cornell at home Saturday to get its share. 

Since Columbia already had beaten Cornell by 27 in Ithaca in January, this seemed like a formality. Instead, you have to give Cornell a ton of credit, as the Big Red built a 12-point first half lead and took the Lions to overtime before falling 69-64.

And what would a wild weekend be without a little more craziness. Princeton and Columbia finished 12-2 each and split with each other; they also went 3-1 against the two teams tied for third, Penn and Harvard. So what would the seeds be?

That couldn't be determined until yesterday morning, when the new NET rankings came out. When they did, Princeton had leap-frogged Columbia, which gave the Tigers the top seed. With that, Harvard, who split with Penn, became the third seed due to its win over Princeton.

So that's the women. 

As for the men, there's the little matter of a 19-point first half lead. Princeton's last three games have seen a team build a 19-point first half lead, and those teams are 1-2 in those games. First, Princeton lost to Yale after having the big lead. Then Princeton held off Harvard after having the big lead.

Finally, Saturday afternoon in Jadwin, it was Princeton-Penn and Penn who built the 19-point lead. Whatever Princeton learned from its two previous games, the main lesson had to be it's never over in the first half. 

Storm back the Tigers did, forcing overtime and then pulling out a 77-69 victory. It was a joyous scene for Princeton afterwards, with at least a share of the Ivy title clinched.

After Cornell defeated Columbia in the afternoon, all that was left was Yale-Brown at night. There was a lot riding on that game. A Brown win put the Bears into the Ivy tournament; a Yale win eliminated Brown and put in Cornell while also giving Yale a share of the title with Princeton.

Who were Princeton fans rooting for in that one? Did they want the outright Ivy title, or were they rooting for Tiger alum Brian Earl, the Cornell coach, to get his team back to Jadwin?

On this past weekend, why should anything in Ivy basketball be simple? 

And that was just the appetizer. The main event starts Friday at Jadwin.