Caught in the Middle

Last night, Princeton basketball ended Penn's season - and sent Harvard to the NCAA tournament - by defeating the Quakers 62-52 at home.  I'm never one to complain about a Princeton victory, especially one that comes during the last game of the season against Princeton's most hated rival (as well as covered on ESPN3.com).  That being said, this was one of those weird games where I didn't exactly know how to feel about the win.  On one hand, it's always nice to send Penn home for the spring. At the same time, though, I've always loved the fact that the Ivy League has historically been dominated by the Tigers and the Quakers, and having the Crimson crash the Big Dance dilutes that.  Princeton forward Patrick Saunders put it nicely:

"It was an interesting game coming in.  We don’t have much love for either team. It was nice to get a win, but it was kind of tough to swallow knowing our win put Harvard in the tournament."

As a Princeton fan, I've been taught to hate the University of Pennsylvania.  My annual trip to the Palestra in Philadelphia was always one of the most anticipated nights of the school year for me, and the two teams played some classic games there while I was in college.  There was certainly no love lost between the two schools, and in seasons where Princeton wasn't heading to the NCAAs the games against Penn were the basketball highlights of the year.  Accordingly, any win against the Quakers is a sweet one, especially when the stakes are as high (at least for Penn) as they were yesterday.  When the NCAA tournament starts next week, Penn will not have a chance to pull a Cornell-like upset or two, and Princeton played a huge role in that.  As a diehard Tigers fan, that doesn't make up for a non-NCAA season, but it's nice to know.

As much as I hate Penn, though, I respect its basketball program.  For almost 20 years spanning the 1990s and most of the 2000s, the Ivy League's automatic bid to the Big Dance fluctuated between the Tigers and the Quakers, with the other six schools always on the outside looking in.  That streak was snapped a few seasons ago when Cornell made a few trips to the NCAAs, highlighted by their Sweet 16 run two years ago, but it seemed like Princeton got the league back on track with their miraculous one-game-playoff win over Harvard at Yale last March.  A Penn victory over Princeton on Tuesday, combined with a neutral site playoff win over Harvard this week, could have further righted the ship for Princeton-Penn dominance.  Having Harvard of all teams join the party is a tough pill to swallow - the Crimson will make their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1946.

The Crimson are the Ivy League's strongest team, and I sincerely hope they put on a strong showing in the NCAAs starting next weekend.  With a relatively impressive resume, they are expected to be around a #11 seed and have a realistic chance of pulling at least a first (or, as we now call it, "second") round upset.  In a way, though, I might have been happier with Penn taking the Ivy League crown and automatic bid, heading into the NCAAs as a #14 or #15 seed and getting crushed by a Missouri or a Duke or a Michigan.  While Harvard's success is probably better for the Ivy League as a whole, it's not fun having another historically weak basketball program join the Ivy's exclusive club of NCAA participants.  Next thing you know we'll be watching Dartmouth represent the Ivy next season.