Let’s look at the league. Yale is on its own planet and is a 12-2, 13-1 type team. James is coaching and recruiting at a level we have never seen previously. Nick is up there with the Atkinson and Bruner types, a cut below Sears. Others:
Cornell- They have talent. Noard and Hinton are really good and it is a system team with an excellent coach.
Columbia- They are veteran and much better coached.
Penn- Power is better than expected and roberts is a first teamer.
Harvard- I thought they would be no. 2. They won’t. The BU defeat was ugly in my opinion as was Northeastern. Won’t say more.
Princeton- Without Davis simply bad. With him, well maybe 6-8.
Dartmouth- Disappointing and could be a coach change after this season.
Brown- Too young and too many defections. Langham is a star in the making.
Gary Walters is my good friend. He sent me the picture, autographed by both 10 years ago. I meant Yale recruiting. Of course, it can’t compare to the cast of the likes of Bill,Petrie, McMillan,Calhoun,Kaminsky, etc. It is all relative. I know the history of the Ivy from 1965 to present like the back of my hand. I did an article long ago which named Princeton 67 as the best Ivy ever, followed by Penn 71 and then Penn 72. Cornell has th best chance at home to defeat Yale this year.
Thanks for the insight, very helpful as we start to turn our thinking to the league. But first we have to win the Big Five! Wish us luck Dec 6 vs nova or temple (they play mon)
Roberts is a warrior (much like Dingle), if his body allows he will get us deep into the tournament. Powers is a great sidekick and if Fran can get more out of the many other guys on the roster, it should be fun.
You will play Nova. They are actually a bubble team now, at worst. Yale is better than them, especially up front.Penn is good. Are they better than Columbia? Not sure at this point.
I think even though your opinions about Columbia have gotten higher, you are still underestimating them. Columbia is arguably playing right now as the best after Yale while also playing the deepest into the bench, which should help with consistency. They are clearly an Ivy tournament team right now, and still with a lot of room for improvement. Things can obviously change, but we’ve kept playing really good even with important absences
To me right now the 4th tournament spot looks like a battle between Harvard and Penn, and maybe one of the rest if they click, with Harvard highly favored.
Im high on Columbia and think 2-8 is relatively weak this year. That being said, Columbia’s resume is essentially losing to UConn by 27 and then beating 5 mediocre teams by varying amounts. We still have a lot to learn with Hovde’s gang.
We beat BU who beat both Harvard and Brown, by the way. And it is not so much about the result or who we beat but how we have been playing, which is hard to grasp without watching the games