IVY Players -Harvard tomorrow?

[Blackman]

Just saw that Harvard has opened up at +21 @ Pinnacle - with the total being set at 135. Hoping that the guys that are close to the Ivy can weigh in.

While Harvard only has two wins, they have been relatively competitive in some of their games, leading at the half on a few occasions. My gut says that this Penn team is not as good as the Penn teams of the past, especially since they play a lot of freshman, and 21 points is a ton in an Ivy league game.

A bit scared because Harvard does seem to give up a lot of points, especially letting Rider hit 101, and Sacred Heart and Cornell get 91 on the board. (Don't really consider Stanfords 100 much of a factor just because for a team like Harvard to travel all the way to Stanford is setting up for a blowout, and Penn is not anywhere in the league of the Cardinal.)

Penn has put up some high totals during the season, but have had some cold nights (54 @ Yale, 49 @ Manhattan and 58 @ Bucknell). All of those games were on the road though, and Penn is averaging 71 at home.

Just seems like a lot of points to me for these two teams, would like to see what some others think. Really on the fence, and would keep the play on Harvard small if at all, but just have a feel that 21 points is a ton.

Thanks,
BM

 

[bjfinste]

I would stay away. It's true that Penn isn't as good as it has been, but it's coming off a weekend in which it was swept on the road by Brown and Yale, opening the Ivy season 0-2. With Princeton 2-0, Penn knows it has to start winning, esp. against these lightweights, to keep in pace with the Tigers. Plus they are returning home.

On the flip side, 21 is a ton of points. I focus on the Ivy's probably more than any other league, but I just don't see anyway I'm playing either side of that contest.

FWIW, I'm on Brown -1 and Brown/Cornell over 144. I was really expecting to see that game come out around -6/150-152 or so.

 

[Blackman]

Thanks for the reply - haven't looked into the Brown game yet but I'll put that next on the list.

After watching a few Penn games I feel that they rely too much on outside jumpers, and have no way to create open shots - but if they are hot this could get ugly. More I think about it staying away from this one might be the best play. Still 21 point is tempting.

Thanks again.

 

[superbook]

Blackman -- I agree that 21 is a lot and I think if you took Harvard +21 and Dartmouth +22 I think you'd win at least one of them and maybe both.

You're right on both of your assessments; Penn isn't as good as in the past and Harvard has no D.

Penn has shown a lot of weakness on O: for some reason Jeff Schiffner hasn't been playing well -- after good games vs Wisconsin and St. Joe's he has shot under 30% from the field in his last ten games.

Plus Penn doesn't have a true point guard in Charlie Copp and they don't have a big post player who gets the double team, so they don't put a lot of pressure on opposing D's. They're near the bottom of the league in steals and FTs, they don't get a lot of easy buckets and have a tendency to go thru long scoring droughts.

Plus if you look at the schedule, the two Ps play 3 games in the next five days including their Tuesday night match-up so I don't see either of them going all out on Friday night.

 

[Blackman]

Thanks for the knowledge guys. After looking hard at these games I'm taking Brown -1.

This just comes down to who is more battle tested, and that is hands down this Brown team. Beat Yale twice this season (who I think has turned out to be a solid Ivy team) and beat Penn in OT. On the other hand, Cornell's last three wins (@ Harvard, @ Dartmouth, and @ Columbia) have only really proven that they can take care of business against the bottom feeders of the conference. This is the 5th road game in a row for Cornell, and Saturday night at Yale will be it's sixth.

Both teams can score, but with a line this small I think that the home team with the slightly better defense is the play. In my opinion Brown is in a slightly higher tier than Cornell, and the line does not reflect that.

GL tonight.

BM