Harvard just lost at home to Penn 55-54. Bummer.
Big win for Tommy tonight ... the Crimson can virtually clinch the title with a home win tomorrow vs. Penn. They play two patsies next weekend to close out the regular season.
That said, the Ivy does not use head-to-head as a tiebreaker. If Harvard ties either Yale or Penn in the standings, there will be a playoff... even if Harvard swept the team they'll be tied with.
Back to Bill Bradley ...
It's nothing like Greg Monroe, Patrick Patterson, Harrison Barnes or anybody who picked somebody other that Duke. That's their choice and even though it may hurt at the time, I don't begrudge them the option of making a mistake.
Bradley committed to Duke. Bradley signed with Duke -- taking the last scholarship that Bubas had available in 1961. He corresponded with Duke all summer, talking about his room assignemt, his class schedule and the like. The day he was supposed to arrive at Duke in September his father called and said, "Sorry, my son has decided to go to Princeton."
The kid didn't even have the decency to call himself. He led Daddy do it.
The loss hurt. If Bradley had picked Princeton in the beginning .. fine. Bubas would have used his last scholarship on Fred Hetzel, a 6-8 beast from Washington, D.C. who wanted to come to Duke. He signed with Davidson after Bubas signed Bradley. He became a first-team consensus All-American for Dreisell (while Bradley, of course, became consensus national player of the year at Priceton). Add either one of those to Duke's Final Four teams in 1963 and 1964 (their sophomore and junior seasons) and Bubas wins at least one, probably two national championships. And having one of them them as senior for the nation's highest scoring team in 1965 (when Duke has Marin, Vacendak and sophomore Bob Verga), might have given Duke a third.
I know Bill Bradley was only 18 years old when he screwed Bubas, but he was still a lying piece of &^$% in 1961. You can tell he was going to become a politican -- a guy so shifty that he renegs on his commitment at such a late date can only end up on prison or in Congress.
Harvard just lost at home to Penn 55-54. Bummer.
Tough, tough loss for Tommy and the Crimson.
Okay, with just over a week to go in the Ivy, it's
Harvard 10-2
Penn 9-2
Yale 9-3
Princeton 7-4
Harvard has two road games left, but they should be winnable games at Columbia (3-9 in the Ivy, 14-14 overall) and at Cornell (6-6 in the Ivy and 11-15 overall)
Penn has a gimmie left with Brown (2-10, 8-21) at home, then a tough home game with Yale, then the finale at Princeton (which has not lost at home in the league this year).
Still a reasonable chance that Harvard wins outright.
If not, there will be a playoff game on a neutral court. Don't know what they do it three teams tie at 11-3 (which is possible -- Harvard loses one of its last two; Yale beats Penn and both win their other games)
Hope Harvard and Stanford do amazingly well in the years to come so that Capel doesn't get any ideas of jumping over his fellow coaches with more seniority when it comes to succeeding the "King" in 5-10 years.
Wow, close call for Tommy and Harvard Friday night. They had to into overtime to beat a bad Columbia team. They finish up the regular season tonight against a Cornell team that is middle-of-the-road in the Ivy (better than Columbia).
A win and Harvard finishes 12-2 in the Ivy.
The only team that can tie them is Penn, which got to 10-2 by beating Brown Friday night night. The Quakares have a tough one tonight -- at Yale, which is probably the third best team in the Ivy.
They the finish up Tuesday night at Princeton, which is probably the fourth best team in the Ivy.
Everybody else has at least four league losses, so it's down to Harvard and Penn.
If they tie, a one-game playoff at a neutral site for the NCAA bid.
So far so good for Princeton. Up 21-6 over Penn with 5:13 to go in the first half.
As you know, if Princeton wins, Harvard goes to the tourney! Go Tigers!!!
Princeton up by 9 with 51 seconds to play. Looking good for Harvard to make the NCAAs.
Princeton defeats Penn, clinching the Ancient Eight championship for Harvard and sending them to the NCAA Tournament. A huge night for the Cantabrigian cagers.
Harvard's first bid since 1946. Now we just need to see if Northwestern can get their first bid ever.
Congrats to Tommy!
I hope that the bracket gods don't put friends together too soon...
That's awesome! A little worrisome to see the teams they lost to/played close at the end, but hell...they dancing! Congrats to Tommy!
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Also, Johnny and the Cardinal had a real nice win over archrival Cal over the weekend, not only denying the Bears a share of the regular season Pac-12 title, but also getting Stanford its 20th win of the year. Stanford still needs to win the Pac-12 tournament to get to the NCAA's, but still, good win for Johnny and his team, one that I'm sure pleased his boss and the fan base.
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
Nice win for the Cardinal over ASU in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament. Chaisson Randle scored 27 of his 30 in the first half and the Sun Devils never threatened to get back in it.
Stanford plays Cal, whom they beat last weekend, in today's quarterfinals. Another win over the Bears might be enough to put them back in the bubble discussion.
Thursday evening Johnny D. and Stanford lost a tough one to their cross-bay rival, Cal, 77-71. The Cardinal was up by 7 at the break, but started the second half being outscored 13-3 in the first 4 minutes... Ugh! They did climb back in it late, with the game tied at 60 with 5:16 to go, but Cal pulls away late.
Cal is a pretty good team (24-8), but this probably ends JD's NCAA hopes for this year, despite a decent 21-11 record.
On the right coast, ND just pulled out a near-miracle win over South Florida, after being down 5 in the final 90 seconds of regulation. Mike Brey and 3-seed Irish march on to face 7-seed Louisville in the Big East Semi's Fri. night. The Irish are now 23-10 and ranked 23 nationally, looking at maybe a 5-seed (?) in the NCAA's... South Fla may be on the outside of the bubble now...
On ESPN they were just showing their take on last-4 in and last-4 out, and then next-4 out. They had NCSU and Mia in those two "last-4 out" boxes, respectively. 'looks like they both need to win at least one more. Watch out FSU and UVA -- they're motivated!!
This statement reminds me of how people report--as though it were absolute fact--that Duke would have won it all in 2004 if the last bit of the UConn game went differently, or if our bigs had accrued a foul fewer apiece. What everyone ignores is that Georgia Tech made the National Final. And they had beaten us about a month earlier. In Cameron.
Bradley went to Princeton. South Carolina left the ACC. Ronald Curry was a young slimeball in 1998. I was pretty exercised about that in 1998...when I was 21. Jeez, let's give it a rest.
A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
---Roger Ebert
Some questions cannot be answered
Who’s gonna bury who
We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
---Over the Rhine