Ivy Hoops Roundup: Feb. 1

Hey Harvard, we’re reading your books! Yes, you might have heard that those naughty librarians up in Cambridge are finally sharing their massive library holdings with the rest of the Ancient Eight after a decade of greedy book-hoarding.

One word, Harvard: karma. Now that you have started putting all that knowledge on loan, you’re 4-0 in the League. The Crimson, 4-0 in Ivy basketball! That’s something you’ll rarely find in one of your history books, or our books or even Brown’s books — if they actually have any.

A Tale of Two Cities. The Crimson tallied that fourth conference win — their tenth straight at home this season — Saturday night with a 78-57 blowout of Cornell. The comparison between the two programs is almost too sweet. Meanwhile, former Cornell coach Steve Donahue was in attendance, watching his old group crash and burn.

Three years ago the Big Red climbed up the Ivy ladder to take hold of the conference, and didn’t let go until its talented senior class and even more talented coach hit the road, sending the program into a tailspin.

This year another (albeit darker) shade of red is on the rise, poised to take control with its own young talent: Harvard has less seniors than a Penn dining hall.

So if history is any indicator, the Crimson will lose an Ivy game sometime in 2013. If the world still exists, that is.

Slaughterhouse-Five. Or the Columbia Lions’ crusade. If beating Dartmouth by 21 points is an achievement, then get the Lions a plaque because they did just that Saturday night in Hanover, N.H.

Surprisingly, the game was tied at the half, but Noruwa Agho took over for the Lions, finishing with 16 points and making Columbia’s list of career 1,000-point scorers. He joined the likes of the great Stan Felsinger (1963-66) — and who could forget Neil Farber (1962-65).

Complimenting the junior’s output with seven points and 12 rebounds was sophomore guard John Daniels, who reportedly celebrated after the win with his brother Jack.

Animal Farm. The full menagerie was at Jadwin Gymnasium this weekend as the Princeton Tigers hosted both the Brown Bears and the Bulldogs of Yale to open their Ivy season.

The Tigers held off rebellions by both teams to remain on par with the unbeatens — Penn and Harvard — atop the League, despite a scare from Yale.

“Basketball’s a game of runs,” senior guard Dan Mavraides told The Daily Princetonian before making a swift exit for the bathroom.

The Tigers will be looking to recreate the magic of 1984 — that special 10-4 season — when they won the Ivy League.

On the Road. Only Columbia could claim an away victory this week as Brown, Yale and Cornell were all on the losing end of weekend sweeps.

Yale quickly learned that starting 2-0 against Brown means relatively little in the grand scheme of things, even when playing against the star power of Josh Biber, whose name was pronounced “Bieber” by the Penn public address announcer Friday night. If that’s not a win for this newspaper, nothing is.

But the biggest loser this weekend was easily the Big Red, not only because they lost to Dartmouth, but because they traveled 13 and a half hours and still lost to Dartmouth.

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