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UPDATED: January 30, 2015, at 2:05 a.m.

So we meet again, dear Around the Ivies reader.

Last we parted, the Crimson was traveling to Yale with a chance to sew up its fourth consecutive league title. Harvard would wrap up a historically dominant 13-1 Ivy League season with consecutive road victories over Yale and Brown before advancing to the third round of the NCAA Tournament, where it took a brief second half lead against Michigan State before falling late. Yale reached the finals of the CIT—a notable accomplishment for a team that hasn’t made the Dance since 1962.

Two games into conference season, the teams appear to have swapped roles. Harvard (11-5, 1-1 Ivy) began the season in the top-25, prompting some exuberant undergraduates to pronounce them the best mid-major in the country. Since, it put forth an underwhelming nonconference season before giving up a 26-2 run to Dartmouth Saturday to drop out of the top two in the league for the first time since 2009. Yale (13-6, 2-0), meanwhile, knocked off defending champion Connecticut in December and came back last weekend to knock off Brown at home and move into first place. Tuesday, Joe Lunardi slotted the Bulldogs into his bracket for the first time this year.

Princeton (8-9, 1-0) —which holds a losing record—rounds out the top three; were the standings to continue, it would be the sixth consecutive year the three teams finished in the top four. Dartmouth and Columbia simmer in a tie for third, dark horses with their share of weaknesses. For the Big Green (8-8, 1-1), it is a lack of outside shooting beyond sensational guard Alex Mitola and a new ban on hard alcohol. For the Lions (9-7, 1-1), the missing presence of Alex Rosenberg—who withdrew from college after breaking his foot in the fall—looms large for a team whose best player is best known as “Chairman Maodo.”

Cornell, Penn, and Brown round out the standings—each with fundamental flaws. The Big Red (9-9, 1-1) has an excellent defense but a poor offense, with few prolific three-point shooting threats beyond Robert Hatter. The Bears (9-10, 0-2) are tough inside, but shaky on the perimeter. The Quakers' (5-10, 0-2) Ivy opener—more on that later—prompted a local column that suggested coach Jerome Allen may be on the hot seat. Of course, 10 months ago members of the Penn women's lacrosse team were reported to be defacing local bars—stealing alcohol, breaking furniture, and, most offensively, tipping less than four percent on a $1300 tab. On-court concerns seem secondary.

Amidst all this upheaval—and, well, debauchery—the Ivy League is a solid 15th in Jeff Sagarin’s conference ratings. At the time of year where small sample sizes have fans overreacting—West Virginia is great! Look out for Georgia!—nobody has separated themselves from the pack in the Ivy League. The 14-game tournament often has the unpleasant side effects of killing teams’ title hopes by the fourth week of the season; this year, no team looks to be the clear juggernaut Harvard was last year, when it blazed a path through the league General Sherman would have been proud of.

Without further ado, onto the action, boss.  

BROWN at CORNELL

Perhaps the most underappreciated team in the Ivy League is the frisky Big Red. Since starting a Cornell-like 2-4, the Big Red has won seven of 12 and were three points from sweeping Columbia earlier this year. Previous columnists in this space have opined we should kick them out of the Ancient Eight, but I have a soft spot for the Big Red.

Pick: Cornell

YALE at COLUMBIA

Two years ago, this column saluted Yale forward Brandon Sherrod for not quitting the game of basketball after Harvard senior Wesley Saunders embarrassed him with a SportsCenter Top Ten-quality posterizing. Sherrod saw our ante and three bet under the gun, quitting basketball last May to join Yale’s most exclusive a capella group, the Whiffenpoofs—whose name was chosen, to nobody’s surprise, by a man referred to as ‘Goat’.

If Yale chokes away the Ivy title in what Sherrod noted “is supposed to be THE year”, I’m officially naming this the Brandy Goat Curse. It’ll be like the one that plagues the Cubs, only with much more hard liquor and sweater vests.