And the Bears, who have just one senior, will return all five starters and add All-Ivy forward Tucker Halperin—who missed this entire season due to mono—and top recruit Rafael Maia, who was ineligible this year.
In fact, with Maia, Andrew McCarthy, Halperin, Sean McGonagill, and Stephen Albrecht, it will, on paper, have the best starting five in the conference.
But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Because Brown’s current bridge remains in worse shape than the one over the River Kwai.
Pick: Princeton 71, Brown 60
YALE AT PENN
The Palestra should be rocking like it is 1979 tomorrow night. And I know it seems paradoxical to take the Bulldogs after picking them to lose to Princeton because it means Yale will have nothing (besides an outside chance of an NIT berth) to play for tomorrow night.
But that’s exactly what I’m doing because Yale is the better team. And the old saying is true. Size matters. The Bulldogs are a bad matchup for the Quakers, who might be the smallest squad in the league.
Then there’s the fact that Mangano will certainly have something to play for in this one. If he outplays Rosen, it could give him a leg up on what should be a very close race between those two for Ivy Player of the Year—an award we learned last season Greg really, really wants to win. So don’t expect any brotherly love in Philly from him. And while Penn doesn’t really have anyone who can defend Mangano (who had 23 and 10 in their last meeting), Yale has Reggie Willhite, one of the best defenders in the league, to throw on Rosen.
Finally, there’s the fact that Penn is just not that good—if it wasn’t for Rosen’s heroics, it would have lost to both Columbia and Dartmouth in two of its past three games. The Quakers are really a one-man show—and like that of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, one that needs to come to an end, eventually.
Pick: Yale 67, Penn 65
PENN AT PRINCETON
If all of the above happens, this one—played on Tuesday thanks to Princeton’s weird finals schedule—won’t matter, and Harvard will be dancing for the first time in 66 years. But both these squads would be playing for possible postseason births in the CBI or CIT, and any game between these two is always a good one.
Zack will get to play what could be the last game of his collegiate career in his home state of New Jersey, the land where only three things are impermissible: gay marriage, wearing Abercrombie & Fitch on your reality TV shows, and supermarket recruiting.
For Princeton, Ian Hummer has had a great season and should join Rosen on the All-Ivy First Team, along with, in my opinion, Mangano, Barbour, and Wright.
If Penn loses one this weekend, I would expect the Tigers to be able to top what would certainly be a deflated Quaker team at Jadwin.
Pick: Princeton 64, Penn 62
LAST WEEK: 6-2
SEASON: 33-5
—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.