Season starts sluggishly for Ivy League men's basketball teams

Just as last year's winter was the hottest in recent years, so was Ivy men's basketball. The parallel maintains its accuracy this season, too.

After last year's success, the Ivy League teams loaded up solid pre-conference schedules for this year, but as the six inches of snow approached, they went cold.

The overall Ivy record is 15-29, and its RPI ranking is 25th out of 32 — a long walk through a blizzard from last year's mid-season ranking of 14.

Before the season began, there was a lot of talk of two schools from the Ivy League play in the NCAA Tournament in March. For that to happen, the Ancient Eight would need to be in the top half of the table as far as conferences are concerned, and the team that qualified for the Tourney without the automatic bid from having the best Ivy season would need to dominate in its pre-Ivy season schedule. That simply has not happened.

Only one team has an RPI among the top 100 schools, and that is 3-2 Harvard at 87. Yale, also at 3-2, is ranked 106 in the nation. Though Princeton is also 3-2, its loss to Florida International and no quality wins has pushed its ranking down to 156. Penn, expected to have the best team in the Ivy League since the Tigers of the late '90's, has not found its groove. It's RPI rating of 278 places it among the 50 worst in the country. Brown and Columbia, both at 1-7, both have RPI ratings around 300. The other schools, Dartmouth and Cornell, are bringing up the middle of the league, pulling in an average RPI rating of 255.

This early in the season, though, RPI does not yet offer a clear indication of how the teams are playing. Below, starting with the best teams and ending with the worst, is a short description of how the league is making it through this cold year.

First, the three squads that won the league last year have the only tangible shots at winning it again this year.

On paper, the team that should win it all is Penn, which recently destroyed Temple, 71-46. That win comes after its underachieving outings against Drexel and Delaware.

Ugonna Onyekwe has played well thus far, but not the stellar season that will put him in the first round of the NBA draft. He has averaged 15.5 points per game on 49 per cent shooting from the field and an impressive 57 per cent from behind the arc. He also leads the turnover-prone team with 3.2 turnovers per game.

Yale has arguably been the best team in the league. It beat Penn State in convincing fashion and stayed in the ring against Wake Forest and Oklahoma State.

Guard Edwin Draughan has led the league with 14 points per game on 47 per cent shooting. The Elis have averaged 47 per cent from the floor and 46 per cent on three point shooting. With the rest of Ivy shooting hovering in the low thirties, Yale has kept the hot hands.

Princeton has been a bit off thus far, but has had two straight wins rolling into its meeting with Rutgers Saturday. The meeting with the instate rivals will be a better indicator than the earlier games this season with regards to the direction of the team.

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Brown was the squad some picked to challenge the three-team race, but it has missed its star, first-team all-Ivy Earl Hunt, in three of its eight games so far.

Even with him in the lineup, though, the Bears have been very mediocre. The squad is shooting a foul 31 per cent behind the arc. Against Rhode Island Monday, they shot 22 per cent during the first half to trail 30-13 at the break. There was no Palestra Miracle, and Rhode Island extended the misery that has so far been the Brown season.

The two squads at the bottom, Dartmouth and Columbia, currently each stand at 1-7.