Noruwa Agho Takes 25 Shots, And Other Things That Happened This Weekend

Hard to argue that the most surprising performances of the weekend came in Ivy showdowns with the Big East, of all conferences.

The league's No. 7 seed, Columbia, waltzed into Gampel and gave the defending champion UConn quite the battle for 40 minutes. Meanwhile Ivy No. 8 seed Dartmouth was within a possession of Rutgers before ultimately falling by six.

The rest of the weekend was a combination of okay and downright scary results. Brown and Harvard took care of their Division III opponents with relative ease. Penn pulled away late to coast to a win in an ugly game against UMBC. Yale used an 18-1 run to open up a commanding lead on Central Connecticut, only to have the Blue Devils close a 14-point deficit to one with under two to play before the Bulldogs closed out a 73-69 victory.

NOTEBOOK: Harvard Clinches Share, Princeton Can Join Tomorrow Night

From the moment Tommy Amaker was hired at Harvard in April 2007, this moment was seen as a foregone conclusion - a point in the future that existed without a definite date, but with a definite presence.

Amaker would lead the Crimson to an Ivy title, at some point, and Harvard's big gamble would pay off. At least a few people, however, would have been skeptical that it would happen this soon.

The progression has been steady each year, starting even from the first. With a young, but ultimately decently talented roster, recovering from loss of All-Ivy talents Brian Cusworth and Jim Goffredo, Amaker led Harvard to its first marquee win, knocking off Michigan at home, during a tough 8-22 campaign.

The following year brought the Crimson's first win over a ranked opponent (Boston College) and Harvard's first win at The Palestra in 18 years. Last season brought the Crimson's first 20-win campaign ever and its first postseason tournament berth since 1946. In year number four, Amaker delivered on his initial promise and brought Harvard its first ever Ivy League title.

NOTEBOOK: Week 17 Powerpoll, Adjusted Efficiency Margin

The second straight league leader couldn't survive the Saturday night portion of the Connecticut/Rhode Island road trip.

This time it was Yale doing the damage, as it dropped then-Ivy leading Harvard 70-69 at Payne Whitney Gym. A Brandyn Curry layup at the buzzer never quite made it over the heel of the rim, allowing the Bulldogs to hang on and with the Cornell win at Penn, seize control of third place in the league.

Now the table is set for an interesting final (extended) weekend. Harvard can clinch a share of its first ever Ivy title with a home sweep of Penn and Princeton. The Tigers can clinch the title outright by sweeping the road trip or can clinch at least a share with a loss at Dartmouth and a win at Harvard.

If the Crimson sweeps or splits but beats Princeton, then the Tuesday showdown between the rival Quakers and Tigers would suddenly add a level of intensity, as Princeton could either clinch its share of the title or the outright NCAA berth at The Palestra.

CURRENT STANDINGS

Princeton	10	1
Harvard	10	2
Yale	7	5
Penn	6	5
Columbia	5	7
Brown	4	8
Cornell	4	8
Dartmouth	1	11

ADJUSTED EFFICIENCY MARGIN

Team	OffEff	DefEff	AdjEff
Brown	1.007	1.054	-0.047
Columbia	0.945	1.010	-0.065
Cornell	1.040	1.097	-0.058
Dartmouth	0.871	1.069	-0.198
Harvard	1.082	1.001	0.082
Penn	0.987	0.978	0.009
Princeton	1.009	0.929	0.080
Yale	0.974	0.994	-0.020

The Adjusted Efficiency Margin didn't change at all from last week, despite the shakeup in the standings. Harvard and Princeton remain a tight 1-2 at the top, while Penn and Yale are a tight 3-4 after a pretty significant gap.

The next bunch - Brown, Cornell and Columbia - remains clumped together in the same order as last week - 5-6-7, respectively. Finally, despite its strong showing at Yale, Dartmouth remains mired in a distant last.

While the Crimson remains in the lead for now, given the razor-thin margin, it is likely that whichever team wins the league will also win the conference-only adjusted efficiency margin race. The Ivy adjusted efficiency margin leader has won the league every year since 2004, when Penn's +7.5 stunningly lost out to Princeton's +3.1.

POWERPOLL

8. Dartmouth (8)
Looked frisky in New Haven and could have sprung the upset. Have to balance that against the stinker in Providence the next night, though.
7. Columbia (4)
The Lions are 3-7 now in their last 10 with two of those victories coming against the aforementioned Big Green.
6. Brown (6)
Can't take away the talking points of "Beat Princeton" and "Led Harvard by 39 points combined over two games." Would have been better if the Bears had nailed down a 2-2 record against the league's top two, though.
5. Penn (3)
Embarrassing and costly mistake at home against Cornell. Now the Quakers must win out to extend their season - a highly unlikely proposition.
4. Cornell (7)
Probably a spot too high for the Big Red, but it has gone 4-3 after a rough league start and could save a miserable season with a home sweep to reach the 10-win mark.
3. Yale (5)
Don't look now, but with two RPI Top 50 wins, the Bulldogs could be a road sweep away from the CBI or CIT.
2. Harvard (1)
The Crimson better hope that 80% Opponents FT percentage regresses to the mean hard this weekend. It's making an otherwise above average defense look very average.
1. Princeton (2)
The team with the easiest path to the title. Beat Harvard on Saturday night for a share and pick one of at Dartmouth or at Penn for the outright NCAA bid.

NOTEBOOK: Adjusted Efficiency Margin Tells The Story

The weekend's events have shuffled the Adjusted Efficiency Margin standings, as Harvard closed the entire 5.6 point gap with Princeton and took a minor lead.

The Crimson has jumped ahead despite a 12.2 percentage point gap in free throw "defense," though that was much larger before Brown sank 25 of its 27 attempts Saturday night.

Team	ORAT	DRAT	DIFF
Brown	98.7	104.4	-5.8
Columbia	95.7	102.5	-6.7
Cornell	103.1	109.1	-6.0
Dartmouth	84.9	104.9	-20.0
Harvard	107.8	98.7	9.1
Penn	99.4	97.7	1.7
Princeton	100.8	92.7	8.1
Yale	95.8	97.2	-1.3

Saturday Notebook: Two Horse Town

After Harvard finally put Yale away with a Keith Wright dunk off of a press break, the Crimson joined Princeton as the second member of the breakaway pack that is now two or more games ahead of the rest of the field.

While the Tigers might only be a game ahead in the loss column, Princeton has carved out a huge lead in the adjusted efficiency margin at +12.3 points per 100 possessions as compared to Harvard's +6.6. The Tigers still have the tougher remaining schedule with six more road games to the Crimson's four, but given how easily Princeton dispatched Columbia at Levien last night, the home/road split might not matter to the Tigers.

The odds are dead even at this point, with both teams winning the league 61 percent of the time (49 percent on a tie-allocated basis).

Saturday Notebook: Princeton Grabs The Lead

The 22nd time? Same as the last 21.

Princeton used a 19-2 run around the halftime break to turn a six-point deficit into a 43-32 lead and hit its free throws in the closing moments to hang on for a 65-61 win over Harvard last night.

Ian Hummer and Kareem Maddox were too much for the Crimson to handle down low, especially after Harvard big men Keith Wright and Kyle Casey picked up their fourth fouls midway through the second half. Hummer and Maddox found themselves with matchup advantages down the stretch and exploited them en route to a 13-for-21 combined performance from the field for 31 points between them.

Tuesday Notebook: Tiger Trouble

It's hard to be faced with the fact that Princeton scored its first field goal of the second half at the 10:01 mark and still say with a straight face that it was the Tigers defense that let them down.

It is, however, the sad truth.

Sunday Notebook: Dartmouth Surprises, Harvard Hangs On

What is it about Hartford that brings out the best in Dartmouth?

After losing its first four games last season by at least 16 points, the Big Green led almost wire-to-wire en route to a double-digit victory. Fast-forward to this season: Dartmouth gets blown out at Providence and squanders a huge second-half lead against UNH. Then, out of nowhere, the Big Green jumps out to a 15-point lead in the first half and Jabari Trotter has a performance reminiscent of the Alex Barnett years.

Friday Notebook: Yale Takes Down BC, Powerpoll

If the Bulldogs had merely downed BC in a vacuum, that would be one thing.

In its first game of the season, shortly after captain and star forward Michael Sands left the team for personal reasons, Yale fell behind 67-47 to decent mid-major Quinnipiac with eight minutes to go. Over the next 88 minutes, the Bulldogs posted a +16 point differential against the Bobcats and two full games against Providence and Boston College. In that context, Yale's victory becomes even more bizarre. How is this Bulldogs team, which lost its best player just a couple weeks ago, hanging with power conference teams for sustained periods of time?

Sunday Notebook: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

It's been all of one game, but the evidence for the Quakers turnaround story is already building.

Behind 18 points from freshman Miles Cartwright - all in the first half - and a double-double from Jack Eggleston, Penn avenged last year's 79-50 loss at Davidson with a 69-64 victory at The Palestra.

Saturday Notebook: Ivies Jump Out To Hot Start

It's rare that an Ivy team finds itself in a must-win situation against a BCS school, but that's where Princeton was on Friday night, needing a home victory over a fringe top 150 Rutgers squad to prove that it and the league wasn't going to take a big step back in the absence of a dominant Cornell team.