Harvard, Dartmouth head down to Jadwin to take on sliding men's basketball

How bad was the men's basketball team against Penn Tuesday night? Not only did the Tigers lose by 24 points, but they also had six more fouls than field goals.

But one game — even if a pathetic one — does not an Ivy League season make.

And Princeton is still second in the conference at 5-2 (9-9 overall against Division I teams, 1-0 against D-III teams). The Tigers, who have lost back-to-back league matchups to Penn and Yale, haven't lost three Ivy games in a row since head coach John Thompson '88 turned his tassel in front of Nassau Hall.

This weekend, the Tigers play Harvard and Dartmouth at Jadwin Gym, where they have won 50 straight conference matchups that weren't against Penn.

The Crimson come to town Saturday night. Harvard is currently third in the Ivies at 5-3, half a game up on the Quakers. The Crimson were the first team to defeat Penn in the conference. But that victory came one night after the Tigers topped Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., 50-48.

Princeton trailed the Crimson by seven midway through the second half, but went on a 15-2 run to take the lead. The Tigers held off a late surge and escaped with their first road victory of the season.

After Princeton showed the world how bad it could be against the Quakers, everyone knows that the Tigers cannot overlook any team, even 2-6 Dartmouth Friday night.

The Big Green have been verde with envy this season as they watched fellow doormats Cornell and Columbia knock off some of the league's elite squads.

Dartmouth has one of the conference's most flamboyant — and talented — guards in senior Flinder Boyd, who would like to end his final trip to Princeton and Penn with an upset of at least one of the league's hegemons.

For Boyd and his band, one game does a season make, if it's a shocker over one of the P's.