COLUMBIA AT HARVARD

The last iteration of this matchup was pretty strange in retrospect. The Lions took a lead as big as 19 in the second half against a Harvard team that had won 10 of its last 11 and was still undefeated in conference. While the Crimson made a run late in the second, the game was all Columbia.

Come Friday, however, Columbia comes into Lavietes having lost three of its last four, including a loss to what was then a one-win Penn squad. Harvard, for its part, has won three of its last four since, and took down Yale to give the Bulldogs their first home loss in nearly two years.

Delving even deeper into Columbia basketball, we’ve discovered that the Columbia Spectator lovingly refers to the team as ‘the Light Blue’—we realize Harvard’s mascot is a color, but referring to yourself as the Light Blue when your mascot is the king of the jungle is nothing short of a consistent exercise in self-deprecation.

Maybe the Lions could win on Friday, but we sure as hell don’t think the Light Blue will.

Pick: Harvard

CORNELL AT DARTMOUTH

So if Columbia keeps doing its Light Blue thing the race for the four spot in March’s conference tournament would have the potential to be a lot more interesting and this formerly irrelevant game has potential playoff implications for both teams.

As it stands, there’s a four-way tie for fifth place in the conference and the Lions have looked pretty Light Blue as of late. Given this, a win here would give either team a pretty significant boost when it comes to keeping its hopes of going to the Palestra alive.

In an effort to better understand the implications of what a playoff berth would mean for either of these teams, we looked to The Dartmouth, an old hag of a newspaper is there ever was one. As it stands when we write this on Thursday, February 16, the top headline in The Dartmouth goes as follows: Lodge Will Be Completed Next Fall.

If the construction of a lodge is front headline news in Hanover we think a playoff berth would probably be great for all those poor, hard alcohol-deprived people at Dartmouth.

Given the fact that their season started with nine consecutive losses, though, it would be tough to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Pick: Cornell

PENN AT BROWN

This one is a lot like the Cornell-Dartmouth game: two teams with identical conference records hoping Columbia can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory down the stretch. In Penn’s defense, it had some of the league’s toughest opponents at the start of its conference slate, but this one is really a toss-up.