The League’s biannual Color War caps an interesting opening stretch for Dartmouth, which has an eminently sweep-able weekend at home against the Gentlemen’s C’s. With freshman Evan Boudreaux putting up All-Ivy numbers, the Big Green had a good look at sweeping Harvard in its first two contests. Dartmouth went 4-3 in the league last year at home, with all three losses by less than 10. Before playing at Jadwin, it gets Penn next weekend—as favorable of a three-game set as you get in the Ivies.
Pick: Dartmouth
PENN AT BROWN
I’ll say this: taking your significant other to this game is a relationship white flag on the order of making Funyuns your one-year anniversary present.
Pick: Penn
COLUMBIA AT HARVARD
Perhaps no team resents Harvard as much as Columbia. While Princeton and Yale have been the biggest challengers to Harvard during its five-year championship run, they’ve done so with varying measures of success. Yale was within a couple possessions of beating Harvard all three times last year and appears to be the only Ivy League team to be fully comfortable in Lavietes arena. Princeton was the last team to win the league and, until recently, could boast a quarter-century winning streak on its Northern rival.
Columbia? The Crimson has repeatedly torn the hearts out of Lions fans. The Lions shocked Harvard three years ago at home and had the Crimson on the ropes again a year later before a phantom call on senior Alex Rosenberg in the second overtime spurred Harvard to an 88-84 double-overtime win that changed the league narrative. The league’s trendiest early-season title pick coming into last year, Columbia lost Rosenberg to injury before the year started. Lo put the team on his back for long stretches of the season, but to no avail. After tearing Harvard up for 22 points in the first meeting—when a buzzer-beater from Chambers thwarted a frantic Lions rally—Lo had an empty 33 in the second as an angry Harvard team ran Columbia off their home floor in a game that wasn’t as close as the final 10-point margin made it seem.
The Lions have a good chance to come into this game 3-0 with Rosenberg and Lo healthy together for the first time. They’ve seen pundits anoint Princeton, Yale, and—at times—Harvard the best team in the Ivies, and they will savor their shot to make a statement on Harvard’s home floor.
Pick: Harvard
–Staff writer David Freed can reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com.