BROWN AT COLUMBIA
If one still doubts the validity of the Ewing Theory—Simmons’ idea that certain teams play better when its best player gets injured or isn’t in the game—consider the Lions.
After losing Noruwa Agho, last year’s Ivy leading scorer, to a season-ending injury just two games into the year, one would’ve predicted Columbia would struggle to win any games at all this season.
But the squad came together in the absence of the ball-dominant guard, and since a two-game adjustment period has gone 14-8—including a 10-1 stretch midway through the year—and, as I mentioned, has been in every Ivy game it has played.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, Brown. But no, you can’t purposely injure Sean McGonagill. It just wouldn’t be right.
Pick: Columbia 57, Brown 54
CORNELL AT YALE
The Bulldogs came out flat in their biggest game of the season once again last Saturday, falling to Harvard by 14. Amazingly, that defeat didn’t even make Yale’s top three losses to the Crimson this year. For it would be tough to do much worse than football’s 45-7 thrashing, men’s basketball’s earlier 65-35 annihilation, and women’s hockey’s 8-0 demolition of the Bulldogs, all of which occurred in New Haven.
In fact, sprinkle in this year’s other disasters—the Patrick Witt and Tom Williams scandals, the 2010-2011 No. 1 men's hockey team’s fall to the middle of the 2011-2012 ECAC pack, Reggie Willhite’s mohawk, the men’s squash team’s epic playoff collapse, and the women’s hockey team’s worst-palindrome-ever 1-27-1 season—and what do you get?
In the eyes of the YDN, only one of the best seasons in the history of Bulldog athletics, of course!
For if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Yale is currently the beholder, and it’s a drunken, blind pirate who doesn’t know what beauty is.
But we shouldn’t be too hard on our New Haven friends. Because when you’re always finishing behind two other schools, it’s only natural to develop a different definition of success.
So go ahead, Yale, be proud of yourself. You’re doing just great. Hopefully you won’t beat the Big Red and put a dint on all your aforementioned achievements this year.
Pick: Yale 70, Cornell 64
LAST WEEK: 8-0
SEASON: 27-3
—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.