Building on David’s last post, so far six Ivy League teams have released their Men’s Basketball schedules. These are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale, leaving Harvard and of course Penn as the two that have yet to disclose their schedules. To further add to David’s post, the February 7th and March 6th Penn games against Cornell are confirmed, as are the two Princeton games. However there’s a big change. Normally, the Tigers visit the Palestra on a Tuesday in mid February, and Penn visits Jadwin on the Tuesday of Spring Break. But according to the Princeton site, it’s reversed. Princeton hosts Penn Feb. 17th, and travels to Philadelphia March 10.

Looking at the non-conference opponents for the other schools, you can say there are three levels of competition. At the bottom are Princeton and Dartmouth. Princeton is clearly in rebuilding mode, as the non-Ivy team with the best record the Tigers will face is 19-12 UNC Greensboro. In fact, UNC Greensboro is the only Tiger non-conference opponent that had an over-.500 record last year. Furthermore, the Tigers also play D-II school Concordia (N.Y.). Maybe they’ll lose to the Clippers just like they did to D-III Carneige Mellon in 2005. (They do face two major conference schools. But South Carolina went 14-18 last year and replace coach David Odom, and Rutgers went 11-20.)

Likewise, while Dartmouth does face a major conference school (Providence), the Friars went 15-16. Instead, its best opponents are Colgate and Marist who both went 18-14 last year. And the Big Green also play a non-Division-I school, facing D-III Plymouth St. They’ll also participate in the Golden Bear Classic hosted by Cal Berkeley, facing Cal (16-15), and the winner/loser of Air Force (16-14) vs. University of Portland (9-22), who should not to be confused with 23-9 Portland St.

In the middle tier of non-conference scheduling, we have Brown and Columbia, who face tough mid major teams, and middling high major schools. The Bears play two 2008 tournament teams in George Mason (23-10) and American (21-11), as well as ACC team Virginia (15-15). The Lions also get the Eagles of American and a Big Six conference opponent (Seton Hall, 17-15).

Although Penn does have probably the hardest non-conference game of any Ancient Eight team, two other Ivy schools  have tough games before starting league play. Stanford (26-7), who made the Sweet Sixteen a year ago, plays at (yes at) Yale. The Bulldogs also travel to Alabama (17-16), and Oregon St. (6-25), where they’ll take on former Brown coach Craig Robinson (no not this Craig Robinson).

But Cornell takes the cake. The Big Red probably has the toughest stretch of any Ivy team, traveling to Indiana (25-7), Syracuse (19-13) and Minnesota (20-13) in a seven day span. They also will play in the NIT Preseason Tip-Off, whose top five seeds are Purdue (24-8), Oklahoma (22-11), Arizona (19-14), Boston College (14-17) and Davidson (26-6). (All but BC made the tournament last year.) Finally, as I already wrote, Cornell visits the Palestra… to face St. Joseph’s (21-13), a 2008 tournament team.

So where would you say Penn’s non-conference slate of UNC (32-2), Penn St. (15-16), Albany (15-15), Navy (16-14), Lafayette (15-15) and of course the Big 5 schools rank? I’d say probably second to Cornell’s.

UPDATE: Here is Harvard’s schedule. The Crimson’s hardest game is probably a trip to Boston College. Penn now is the only team that has yet to release its schedule.

Tags: basketball, Ivy League, schedules

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