Pick: Columbia

CORNELL AT PRINCETON

While this is Cornell senior forward Shonn Miller’s last weekend in the Ivy League, it is likely not his final college basketball contests. Miller, who was honored last weekend by Cornell at senior night, has another year of eligibility since he sat out last season with injury; like former Ivy League players Andrew Van Nest ’12 and Dwight Tarwater, Miller is victim to the Ivy League’s policy of forbidding graduate student participation.

Before he shows up as the seventh man on a fringe tournament team from a Big Five conference, Miller has a chance to lay waste to a Princeton front line that Justin Sears devastated last weekend. A winnable sweep of the Penn/Princeton trio would be a memorable and fitting end to Miller’s excellent career.

Of course, seeing as Miller’s own university paper misspelled his name in its lede after arguably the most important victory of his career, he may need to average 60 points a game this weekend or “Shaun Miller” is going to be grabbing the headlines.

Pick: Princeton

BROWN AT DARTMOUTH

Captain Morgan and Jack Daniels—two fans who manage to show up at every intense college basketball game—will be in Cambridge Friday night. It’s unclear what’s going to be a bigger deterrent to their arrival in Hanover—the college’s new hard alcohol policy or the team’s dispiriting play, as the team hasn’t won more than 10 Ivy League games since 1980. At 5-7, and with senior Gabas Maldunas out the door, it may be a while still.

Pick: Dartmouth

YALE AT HARVARD

It was a classic on the gridiron, and smart money is on another close contest is Cambridge. Harvard is 60-4 since the beginning of the 2010-2011 season at home, and will have a roaring student section behind it. It led Yale almost wire-to-wire in New Haven and if it can take an early lead, its suffocating defense will be enough.

Pick: Harvard

COLUMBIA AT PRINCETON

Crazy statistic courtesy of Kevin Whitaker: Princeton led by multiple possessions in the second half of every game in February, but finished the month just 4-4. It welcomes Columbia, who bid its seniors goodbye with a pair of tough home losses to Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend.

When these teams last met, it looked like the winner might challenge Harvard and Yale at the top of the standings. Now it just feels like a sad battle to make the CIT.

Pick: Princeton

CORNELL AT PENN

Once upon a time, Cornell-Penn was one of the most dominant rivalries of the Ivy League. The teams have met 122 times on the gridiron for the Trustees’ Cup. Although the title of trophy says quite a bit about Ivy League athletics, it doesn’t speak to the current quality of the rivalry. The two schools ran off six consecutive championships between them in the early part of the century, but look poised to trade spots in the league basement this year.

The teams bring the best out of each other—Penn’s best performance of the year was its win in Ithaca, and last year’s 2-26 Cornell team played Penn within seven points in both meetings.

That’s a bigger feat than it sounds—last year’s Cornell team, judging by average overall point margin, was the worst in the last 35 years of the Ivy League. This year’s Penn team? Well, its -10.75 average conference point margin would just barely crack the top-15 worst teams since 1980.