Still Perfect After All These Years

At least it's all over.

For the 90th time in 90 years, the Harvard men's basketball team did not win the Ivy League championship, setting a record for futility that's going to be tough for anyone to beat.

Oh, well.

Life Goes On

In a game that would have been infinitely more exciting had there actually been something at stake, Cornell upended Princeton in Ithaca, 70-66.

The Tigers fell to 12-2 in league play, but they are laughing all the way to the NCAA tournament. Cornell pulled into a four-way tie for last place at 5-9.

Overall, the Big Red went 7-5 at home and 0-14 on the road. If Cornell was located anywhere near civilization, its basketball team would be lucky to get a win.

Tied with Cornell in last place are Brown, Dartmouth and Harvard. Yale is in fourth place at 7-7. Columbia finished third (?!) with an 8-6 record, and Pennsylvania took second place with a 9-5 record, three games behind the Tigers.

Harvard by the Numbers

The reason for Harvard's 5-9 Ivy record stands out pretty clearly in the postseason statistics:

The offense was shaky: sixth in field-goal percentage (43.7%), last in 3-pt. percentage (28.7%), and fifth in scoring offense (92.9 points per game).

The defense was terrible: last in defensive field-goal percentage (49.3%) and last in scoring defense (72.3%).

No further analysis needed.

The Good News

Captain Ron Mitchell finished as the Ivy League's leading rebounder, averaging 8.5 boards per night.

With his monstrous 35 point performance against Brown, Mitchell also moved into third on the Ivy scoring list, with a 15.8 average.

Tyler Rullman, the team's overall leading scorer this season, is fifth on the same list. Rullman averaged 15.0 points per game.

Wait 'Til Next year

One bright spot is the Crimson's record at home. If Harvard can defeat Holy Cross in its home opener next year, the Crimson will have won six straight games at home for the first time in the program's history.

Maybe, just maybe, Coach Frank Sullivan's got a good thing going.