In case you haven't heard, Penn had a pretty big win yesterday. In addition to reading our recap (which links to a full box score), check out our sweet photo slideshow from the game, taken by DP Photo Editor Pete Lodato. (You can also read the Cornell Daily Sun's recap if you so desire).

Upsetting the top team in the Ivy League would have been a pretty big deal regardless of the program. But throw in Cornell's No. 22 rank, and last night’s game is garnering national recognition.

Pat Forde at ESPN.com has a post that discusses three big games yesterday, including the Quakers' upset. He calls Penn's win "certainly the biggest league upset of the year nationwide. Might be the biggest upset, period." That link also has a video interview with Zack Rosen and Jerome Allen. Yahoo Sports also asks if this was the upset of the year.

In addition, here's another ESPN article about the wide-open Ivy race. On that note, Penn (3-2 Ivy) is technically in control of its own Ivy League title destiny, since it will take on both Cornell (6-1) and Harvard (5-2) again and has yet to face off against Princeton (5-0). As a friend of mine joked, if Penn wins the rest of its games this season, it will win the national championship. Of course that isn't going to happen -- nor is it even likely they will sweep the rest of the Ivy slate. But a team that many thought would struggle to win four or five Ivy games, has already won twice on the road and is now undefeated at home after upsetting the No. 22 team in the nation.

Hi, Penn basketball fans! This is Brian Kotloff bringing you live coverage of the Quakers’ first Ivy League home game against Cornell. Penn is looking for its third Ivy win of the season, but it will need to pull off a monumental upset of the Big Red in order to do so. Follow the action along with me below.

Cornell vs. PENN

Ed. Note: The DP's story on tonight's game can be found here. We'll be updating steadily and filling in some of the missing details.

Hey everyone, Neil Fanaroff here at Lavietes Pavillion in Boston, MA for tonight's matchup between the Penn Quakers and Harvard Crimson. Penn's looking to continue its winning ways after consecutive down-to-the-wire victories over Brown and Dartmouth. Harvard, however, looks to bounce back from its disappointing start to Ivy League play, after losing consecutive games to Harvard and Princeton.

I'll be bringing live updates to those of you stuck inside thanks to the snow, or anyone else who wants to follow along. Follow along with me here:

Penn @ Harvard Live Updates

So it appears to me that we're all about the gambling here at the DP these days, but I thought I'd throw this in anyways.

For those unaware, ESPN.com has had an ongoing game for a while called Streak for the Cash. The rules change every so often, but the premise is fairly simple: they place a number of games/props for you to choose from, you pick one at a time and try and string together as long a streak of correct picks as you can. Under the current rules, the winner at the end of each month wins $100,000. It's completely free, so is a nice way for risk-averse people like myself to get a bit of a sports gambling fix and it's also very difficult.

As you can see on today's Streak page, one of the games to pick today is Penn-Dartmouth, I suppose it makes some sense, as the game is expected to be a close one, and thus a tough one to pick. Dartmouth, favored by 2 over the Quakers, has been picked by 87.2% of people as of this post, so the masses clearly are going with the 4-14 Big Green over the 2-14 Quakers. What do you think, loyal Buzz readers, should I wager by 5-pick Streak on this game? Let me know in the comments below.

On another note, tonight's matchup features two interim head coaches facing off against each other; I wonder when the last time that happened was?

See you in a few hours, when I'll be liveblogging the game from frigid Hanover, NH.

The Ivy League conducted an official review of Penn's last-second victory over Brown on Saturday, and ruled that they will not take any action. There is no indication of whether they ruled the basket was released before the buzzer, but rather a focus on the NCAA rules stating that "The final determination of the outcome of the game rests with the game officials and their approval of the final score," and that game scores cannot be changed once the referees leave the court.

Based on a bit of ambiguous language, I'm not sure if the League actually found that the bucket was good, or is just saying that they won't change anything regardless. If the former, great. If the latter, I think the discussion of replay being instituted will become an even hotter topic. What do you all think? Should the Ivy League institute instant replay at all men's basketball games, regardless of whether they're televised?

Hey all,

I'm here at the Pizzitola center for Penn's matchup with Brown in their second game of the young Ivy season. They'll be looking to bounce back from a loss to Yale last night. Follow along with me for all the action.

M. Hoops at Brown, 1/30/10

So far this week, we've seen a book devoted to Ivy hoops and a Wall Street Journal piece saying that the Harvard-Cornell game (tonight, 7 p.m. ET, Ithaca, N.Y.) may be “[t]he game of the year in college basketball.”

Well, now Sports Illustrated jumps into the fray with a feature on Harvard basketball. The story focuses on coach Tommy Amaker and star guard Jeremy Lin, who may be headed for the NBA. SI also had an interesting table with the story, replicated below:

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Zach Klitzman gave his picks for yesterday's games. All the favorites cruised, and Klitzman didn't do too badly, going 2-1.  But his line-setting prognostication skills weren't quite as good; here are the previously unavailable spreads for today's action:

Harvard at Cornell -8

Princeton -2 at Yale

Dartmouth at Columbia -9

Penn at Brown -6

As Penn enters the double-round robin Ivy Season this weekend, I'll write some previews of the other Ivy games coming up. (And on Monday I'll to bring back the "What the other side is saying" feature I did for some of the football games in the fall.) But to make these posts more exciting, I'll pick the games using the spread. Because let's face it, without a little (hypothetical) gambling, who really cares about Columbia versus Dartmouth?

So let's get started after the jump

(more...)

Nobody ever accused us at The Buzz of being avid book readers, so I apologize that we're a little late with this.

But Washington Post reporter Kathy Orton has written what she calls "the first book inside Ivy League basketball." To get material for Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League -- which was released on Sept. 11, 2009 -- Orton spent the 2005-06 season following Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and, yes, Penn.

Of course, a lot was different back then. Fran Dunphy was still the coach, and the Quakers finished 20-9 (12-2 Ivy) en route to the NCAA Tournament. Ibrahim Jaaber was the conference Player of the Year.

Still, in additional to chronicling that season, the book provides context on the history of Ivy League hoops. We'll try to get our hands on a copy and relay what we find, but in the meantime, here's an excerpt from the book and a Q&A with the New York Times' Quad Blog.

The most relevant part of the Q&A is after the jump. (more...)

Personally, I think The Wall Street Journal's rhetoric is a bit over the top on this one. But an article in Wednesday's paper says that the Ivy League may just have "[t]he game of the year in college basketball."

The essence:

Saturday's game between Harvard (13-3) and Cornell (16-3)—and the scheduled rematch on Feb. 19 at Harvard—will bring a sense of urgency that this sport is unaccustomed to, at least before March. For the first time—arguably ever—the Ivy League has two legitimate NCAA Tournament-caliber teams.

But given the conference's diminished standing, it's all but certain that only one of them—the eventual Ivy champion—will get there.

The Ivy League has never sent more than one team to the Dance.