There are certain things we assume when we wake up every morning. The sun will rise in the east, 100 tourists will rub John Harvard's foot and someone will be shooting hoops under Lavietes Pavilion's glass pyramid.

It's also pretty safe to assume that the men's basketball team from either Penn or Princeton will represent the Ivy League when March Madness rolls around.

The Quakers and Tigers have combined for all but three Ivy titles since 1963, and have advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament three times in the last six years, including Princeton's legendary 43-41 upset of UCLA in 1996.

With three All-Ivy players playing their final season at the Palestra, Penn was the unanimous favorite to win the league in the preseason media poll. In New Jersey, the final remnants of Princeton's 1997-98 squad that climbed as high as No. 7 in the national polls have graduated, and sophomore center Chris Young--who is the defending Ivy Rookie of the Year--will be the centerpiece of a new era for the Tigers.

But don't count out Dartmouth. All five starters return from a Big Green team that finished a game behind Princeton last season. Dartmouth was clearly the third-best team in the Ivy last year, but it remains to be seen whether the Big Green, which lost all four games to Princeton and Penn in 1997-98, has the experience to challenge the two front-runners this season.

Cornell has four starters back to build on a season that ended with a two-point loss to Penn at the Palestra. The biggest question mark is Harvard, with seven newcomers on its roster and five graduated seniors to replace. A pair of new head coaches will try to turn around the programs at Brown and Yale, while Columbia will struggle to replace All-Ivy guard Gary Raimondo.

Here's how each team looks heading into non-conference play, in the order of the preseason media poll:

1. Pennsylvania