Archive for January, 2009

Saturday Jan 31

Saturday
Yale at Cornell -8 = -14
Brown at Columbia pk = -4
Penn at Dartmouth +7 = +5
Princeton at Harvard -6 = -6

Yale showed their true colors last night, up by 9 at the half, leading the entire game up until 3 minutes left, then losing by ELEVEN.  Assholes.

Looking at tonight’s card, only two plays:  Harvard -6 1x, Penn -5 3x

First Friday Extravaganza

Here were the predictions, followed by the actual line in bold

Friday
Yale at Columbia +4 = -2
Brown at Cornell -10 = -14
Princeton at Dartmouth -2 = +1.5
Penn at Harvard pk= -6

Two lines clearly stand out - the first being Columbia favored over Yale, despite Yale’s two back to back wins over Brown last week.  I guess they say home court is worth a few points, but not that many.  The Jones brothers fiasco will go to Yale tonight.  Play: Yale +2 1x

The second, and more obsurd is the Harvard vote of confidence, favoring them by 6 over Penn.  Harvard beat BC, and now they’re the best thing since sliced bread.  I guess the national spotlight 15 minutes of fame faded before they lost to Dartmouth (almost twice).   Play: Penn +6 1x

Lastly, despite the two losses to Yale, I continue to think that the Bears are a solid team, and will fight tooth and nail to at least be an upset threat.  Play: Brown +14 2x

The Princeton Dartmouth shitshow is the pass of the week.

Opening Oddities

In the most atypical league in the country, the first few games of Ivy play are no exception.  Where else do you get to see two team play each other back to back in less than a week’s time?  Agaisnt all expectations, Darthmouth rose out of the cellar and split with Harvard — nearly taking both games.  That aught to take a little of the wind out of Amaker’s sail after their “program defining” BC upset.  Yale also made a statement in the league’s opening games, taking two from the Bears.  Cornell had a nice warmup, trouncing their travel partner Columbia twice with ease.

Now the season really gets underway, and Fri/Sat back to back games become the norm.  Lets see what we have to look forward to this week, with line guesses included:

Friday
Yale at Columbia +4
Brown at Cornell -10
Princeton at Dartmouth -2
Penn at Harvard pk
Saturday
Yale at Cornell -8
Brown at Columbia pk
Penn at Dartmouth +7
Princeton at Harvard -6

The game of the weekend for me is Penn at Harvard.  Penn’s first Ivy game will be a tough challenge after their miserable January so far in the Big 5.  It’s a game they have to take if they hope to challenge Cornell at all for the conference.

Conference Tipoff

The first game of the season long Ivy Playoffs begin tonight with Harvard traveling up the road to Dartmouth.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, their season may have already peaked. A stunning 12 point win over then-ranked #24 BC has been quoted as a milestone victory for the program. For any Ivy league team to complete on an ACC level requires the starts to align, and they did with Harvard shooting 50% from the floor, making more free throws than BC attempted, and forcing 16 turnovers from a bigger, stronger, and more athletic team.

So what happens from here? It’s easy to daisy chain the events that took place: BC beat #1 ranked UNC, then 72 hours later lost to lowly Harvard in front of a very generously quoted 3,000 fans. Harvard is now coming off their epic victory, and traveling up to sleepy 2-10 Dartmouth for a game that will be lucky to draw 300 fans. The Big Green haven’t won a game in a month, and will be lucky to win one the rest of the way.

Harvard’s team has proven that they can compete on any given night, and is undoubtedly going to give Cornell coach Steve Donahue a couple more sleepless nights than anticipated.

Play: Harvard -7.5 1x

Patience

I’ve gotten a few emails recently asking what the heck is going on.  There are games going on, and no posts!!11  Well, patience my friends.  One thing that took me years to learn is that there are basically 2 types of gambling - The first is putting a few bucks on the game of the night to make things more interesting.   That’s fine, if you’re looking for entertainment.  Personally, I’d rather get mine from a 12 pack of beer, large pepperoni pizza, and free internet porn.   The second type of gambling is wagering objectively and patiently with the only desired outcome being to have more money than you started with at the end of the year.

The latter is what we’re trying to do here.  Though there will be plenty of losses, heartache, and broken remote controls mixed in along the way, it should all be worth it if our patience leads to some extra units at the end of the year.

If you need a fix, play some bowl games.  Things don’t get heated up here until February.