Here's our first Ivy Notes of March 2009:

1) A San Diego-centric website has a surprisingly interesting profile of Tyler Bernardini, and it has nothing to do with the author's first name.  Among highlights: Bernardini admits “the Drexel fans are the absolute worst to me" and that "I really didn't want to go to Penn at first."

2) Penn Athletics is offering a chance to one lucky fan to be the designated "Fan of the Game" against Princeton. But Bank of America is sponsoring the event and it's only open to BoA cardholders.

3) I really don't understand how Twitter works, but supposedly if you like college basketball and can use twitter, Soft Pretzel Logic has you covered.  Or tweeted. Something like that.

4) Here's this week's Schuylkill 16.

To further make up for my lack of links, here's a few more to chew over.

1) ESPN's Dana O'Neil -- who did this piece on Saint Joseph's playing at the Palestra --  has a profile of former Princeton coach Pete Carril. Princeton recently honored him by naming the court at Jadwin Gym after him. The ESPN article is worth a look just for the picture of Carril.

2) I know the non-revenue sports don't often get covered here on the blog, but here is a video Penn Athletics produced on senior Carrie Biemer, who just scored her 1,000th career point.

As a sports editor I've been too busy to post Ivy/Big 5 notes, so I'm back to do a little bit of that.

1) Of course with few "Notes" entries, I haven't posted any Schuylkill 16 polls in a long time. You can catch up here. HERE'S THIS WEEK'S.

2) Speaking of Soft Pretzel Logic, Tannenwald has a really interesting post where he takes an in-depth look at RPI numbers for the Big East, ACC, Atlantic 10, CAA and Ivy League.

3) Fire Glen Miller has a take off on Stephen Colbert's Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger segment. To be honest, it's basically a summary of stories that ran in today's DP -- though as a point of clarification Krista wrote a column, not a feature. So what appears in that article is her opinion.

The one thing that is not DP based is the discussion of the seating policy.  Although today there was not an article about it, next week we are planning to run a follow up on that policy as well, so stay tuned for that.

Sorry it's been awhile since I last posted these notes, but unfortunately I've been quite busy as the semester is starting.  So without further ado here are some Ivy and Big 5 notes:

1) Harvard might be losing its All-Ivy quarterback Chris Pizzoti to graduation, but a familiar face might still be the Crimson's signal caller.  Andrew Hatch, who was last seen throwing passes in Death Valley for LSU, will transfer back to Harvard. Hatch threw for 282 yards, two touchdowns and one pick for the Tigers this past season, but lost the starting job to Jarrett Lee.  He previously played in Cambridge in 2005 on the Harvard JV team.

2) I know it's a little outdated, but Dave Zeitlin has some good Ivy information over at Rush the Court.  Highlights include discussion of Harvard's epic win over then-No. 24 Boston College, the first win for the Crimson over a ranked opponent, Cornell's new transfer from Kentucky -- as if they didn't need anymore help -- and of course Penn's woes against Temple.

3) Again, it's been a long time since I posted these, but here are all of the Schuylkill 16 polls, including several that I didn't post.

1) Here is week seven of the Schuylkill 16 poll.  After Villanova defeated Temple last Monday, it seems unlikely that the Wildcats will lose the top spot especially with just one more game against a S-16 opponent (Rutgers).  Meanwhile even if they lose in the Big East, it won't be to a terrible opponent since right now every Big East team remaining on Villanova's schedule is above 134 in the Ken Pomeroy rankings.  (Penn, on the other hand, only plays five games against opponents above 134: Temple, La Salle, St. Joe's and twice against Cornell).

2) In conference news, Dave Zeitlin checks in yet again on Rush the Court, asking Glen Miller to give a "state of the program address."  He also sees the league as Cornell vs. everyone else, which at this point is probably what it's going to be. (He also mentions item number 3.)

3) I don't quite know how this fell through the cracks, but Princeton is going to name the floor at Jadwin Gymnasium "Carril Court" after Hall of Fame coach Pete Carril who invented the Princeton offense.

4) Moving away from basketball, Penn might not have a varsity ice hockey team, but that doesn't mean the rest of the conference's teams don't get national attention on occasion. In fact, Ted Donato, the Harvard coach, recently got a write up in the New York Daily News since he is a former Ranger and Islander.  (HT David Gurian-Peck).

With finals week in full force, I've been too swamped to post often, so forgive me if some of these links are outdated.

1) As a special to ESPN the Magazine, Jonathan Tannenwald wrote a piece on the Big 5 in preparation for the St. Joe's Villanova game which took place Thursday.

2) Speaking of the Holy War, in case you didn't hear, it was quite the game. The Wildcats pulled out a squeaker, winning 59-56. Maybe Villanova won't dominate the Schuylkill 16 as imagined.

3) And if there's one team out there that might jump ahead of Villanova in the rankings, it's Temple, who pulled of a shocker by owning No. 8 Tennessee 88-72 today at the Liacouras Center. (And yes ESPN does have a Christmas headline.)

4) Lastly, I must admit that I've been reading Fire Glen Miller for the last week. After declaring itself a "hate blog" it has toned down its vitrolic postings to some degree, even if half the posts are pretty lame. But it just got a huge dose of legitimacy yesterday when Stephen Danley, yes that Steve Danley, wrote a guest piece.

He breaks the post into three sections: one on the Red and Blue Crew, one on "The Fellas" (aka the current players) and of course one on Glen Miller himself. As for the RBC, he says, "I know I don’t have to tell you - but you guys win games." The opposite definitely could apply to this year: with the low turnout, the team hasn't felt any energy from its fans that can "will you to a comeback."

As for the current players, he makes a great point: his sophomore year the team started 4-7. "And it was an ugly 4-7. Lost to Providence by 40. Wisconsin by 30. San Francisco. Illinois-Chicago. Rider." However, the team got its you know what together and won the Ivy League with a 13-1 record. This year, with only Harvard (4-3) above .500 in the Ivy League, as the Penn team four years ago said, "Why not us?" (To be fair, four out of Cornell's five losses came at the hands of either Big Ten or Big East schools.)

Finally, he says that Glen Miller is an offensive genius and has installed a great culture and work ethic. If Danley says that Glen Miller is an offensive genius, I'm willing to believe him. Hopefully that means that the team's current points per game of 66.6 will go up, and their scoring margin average of -7.3 will improve come Ivy season.

1) In his weekly column, Forde-Yard Dash, ESPN writer Pat Forde listed some key rivalry matchups this weekend in college football. One of the five he profiled was the 125th edition of The Game.

Yale at Harvard (31). This is the 125th meeting, which is something very few rivalries can say. Harvard is 8-1 and trying to win the Ivy League. Yale is 6-3 and hoping to grab a share of the title, but needs help. Harvard has regained the White House but doesn't move in until 2009. For now, a Yalie still sits in the Oval Office. As for this game: close favors the Crimson. Harvard is 4-1 in games decided by four points or less. Yale is 1-3.

2) Looking for a quick preview of the men's soccer NCAA game this Friday?  Collegesoccernews.com has you covered. They consider Penn's goalkeeper "a prime timer," which only means a Dick Vitale wannabe writes for them. (HT to Noah Becker)

3) Philly Hoops Insider, the new Philadelphia college basketball blog from the Philadelphia Daily News, has started to produce some quality posts. Each entry could easily make Random Ivy notes, but in the interest of space, only the best items will appear here. That said, I'd strongly encourage any Big 5 fan to check there every day, since it appears as if they'll be multiple updates daily.

The biggest two items so far are a piece by Fran Dunphy on his team's roadtrip to Charleston, S.C., as well as Dick Jeradi's thoughts on City 6 teams so far this year.

1) Why is Howard upseting Oregon St., 47-45, worth posting here on a blog dedicated to Penn sports?  It's not for the requisite references to Beavers head coach Craig Robinson's famous in-law (if you don't know who I'm talking about you clearly have never read an article that mentioned Craig Robinson). It is because the two coaches -- Robinson and Bison coach Gil Jackson -- have Ivy League ties. Robinson not only was an assistant under Glen Miller and then his replacement at Brown, but he also played for Princeton in the 1980's. Jackson, meanwhile, served as an assistant coach at Penn under Fran Dunphy for 16 years.

2) Here's a quick rundown of "Morning Madness," as Penn travels to Drexel today at 10 a.m. for the first time in school history.

3) I wanted to get the Week 1 poll results of the Schuylkill 16 out before the Drexel game, as it's clearly the biggest S-16 game of the week.  After the jump, my week 1 votes.

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Note: As we move into basketball season, items about the Big 5 will be included in "Random Notes"

1) Philly.com has launched a new college basketball blog dedicated to City Six hoops. Not only will the blog have posts from the Inquirer's college sports staff of Mike Kern, Bob Cooney and Dick Jerardi, but five of the six City Six coaches will also post their thoughts.

Interestingly, Villanova's Jay Wright -- in classic we're-too-good-for-the-rest-of-the-city fashion that Villanova demonstrated when it almost left the Big 5 -- "was not able to make the commitment because of his busy schedule during the season," according to the first post. Is his schedule really that much busier than any of the other coaches? The only possible answer is that the Big East does involve more traveling than the other conferences represented in the city, as the Wildcats travel to Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois and Indiana for conference play. (Ironically, their farthest non-conference game is at Madison Square Garden.)

2) Nittanydelphia, a blog dedicated to Penn State and Philadelphia sports, is publishing previews of all Big 5 teams.  Here is Penn's entry. From there you can find the other schools' as well.

3) Many preseason publications had the Harvard men's basketball team finishing as high as third in the conference. One key reason voters saw the Crimson moving up from seventh to third was 6-foot-10 freshman sensation Andrew Van Nast. However, Van Nast has injured his shoulder and will miss the entire year. The Crimson are not completely out of luck, since they do return all five starters from last year.

4) Looking over the Sagarin NCAA football ratings, four Ivy League teams are ranked above at least one FBS team. Harvard is the top Ivy team at no. 135 and is ahead of eight FBS teams, including Washington State of the PAC-10.  No. 156 Brown is ahead of two FBS schools, and both No. 162 Penn and No. 165 Yale are ahead of No. 171 North Texas.

1) What does Princeton have in common with Indiana, Maryland, Stanford, Texas Tech and Arkansas?  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, they're all "esteemed basketball programs" that might finish last in their conferences.

2) Basketball players have always been some of the most obvious BMOCs on campus here at Penn.  And even though he's only a sophomore, Tyler Bernadini has been selected by Comcast SportsNet as Penn's representative for their "Big Men on Campus" series.

3) ESPN The Magazine has come up with one stat for each Division I team that best represents both last year and future results. (Unfortunately, the link requires a subscription to ESPN Insider).

Here is Penn's, with the rest of the league after the jump. The team's are ranked in order of predicted finish.

2 ) Penn

74.5

The Quakers are coming off of their first losing season since 2000-01, but led by Ivy ROY Tyler Bernardini, they're well-stocked to challenge Cornell ... if they D up. Penn gave up 74.5 ppg last season, its worst performance in 20 years.

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