The Ivy League has
quickly become a mid-major freight train.
Sure, finishing 2013-14
with the highest rank and average pythagorean winning percentage of
the Pomeroy era was nice, as is Dan Hanner's 2014-15 projection
of the Ivy as the 12th-best league in the country (which
would set another record). But the most impressive part of the league is how
its best teams closed out the campaign last season, establishing a momentum
that carries far beyond Harvard, and its summer of Top 25 praise.
Five Ivy League teams
made the postseason, and four of them won at least a game. Yale played all the
way into April, notching four victories (including the first Ivy vs. Ivy
postseason battle against Columbia) on its march to the CIT Championship Game.
All told, five Ivy teams
finished among the top half of Division I, and none of those five squads
returns less than 60 percent of its minutes from last season. In fact, Columbia
brings back everyone, Brown loses "just" four-year starter and perennial
All-Ivy guard Sean McGonagill and Yale's only significant loss is Brandon
Sherrod, who has reminded us all of the true nature of the Ivy experience
by taking a year off to pursue his passion of a cappella -
something with which I can't argue, given that I've watched Pitch
Perfect about a billion times.
