The intro to the piece:
That Penn-Harvard logjam atop the Ivy League football race may finally be showing cracks.
The Penn-Princeton monopoly in men's basketball fell apart, so why not football?
Harvard still earned a share of the 2013 title, so it's not as though the standings are being turned upside down. But Princeton earned the other share of the title and could grab the favorite's role this season.
Penn has some holes to fill this year, like Harvard. Meanwhile, Dartmouth returns a lot of talent, Yale was young last season and earned a big win by traveling across the country to beat Cal Poly of the Big Sky Conference, and Brown has been third-best to Harvard and Penn for some time as well.Regarding Dartmouth in 2014, there are brief thoughts on replacing Dominick Pierre at running back, Will McNamara stepping up at linebacker and the placekicking.
There's no breaking news but decent nuggets on all of the teams in the league.
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Find an interesting story and video with Harvard quarterback Conner Hempel talking about how his former position coach Joel Lamb helped him deal with doubts after he began his career as the Crimson's sixth-team quarterback. The story is on the SportsLeader website, which bills itself as, "a virtue-based mentoring and motivation program for coaches."As a junior last fall, Hempel completed 66 percent of his passes (third-best in Harvard history), was third in the Ivies in passing yards per game and efficiency and ran for 259 yards while winning All-Ivy honorable mention recognition.
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In case you were wondering, the Penn women's basketball team ended Princeton's run of Ivy League titles at four last night with an 80-64 victory in a winner-take-all game at Jadwin Gymnasium. From the go-figure department, Princeton had won the first meeting of the teams in a run-away, 84-53, at the Palestra.It was a difficult year for the Dartmouth women's basketball team but the Big Green can take some small consolation in knowing that it joined Princeton as the only Ivy League team to beat the champions. Dartmouth defeated the Quakers in Hanover on Feb. 22, 53-50. Penn finished the year winning 14 of its last 15 games with the lone loss at Leede Arena.
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The snow has started in the Upper Valley and some forecasts suggest we could get 12-18 inches here on the mountain. The snow could be heavy and the wind is supposed to really pick up tonight. If there's no blog tomorrow it will be because we've lost power.
