Elsewhere ...

From a December Denver Post:

Five years ago, 6-foot-9 Nate Solder of Buena Vista chose a football scholarship offer from Colorado rather than playing basketball at Dartmouth. How wise does that decision look now?

The All-American offensive tackle is projected by Mel Kiper to go at No. 29 in the first round of the NFL draft, but that's not the reason for mentioning him again today. Rather it is this humorous video, which shows a Pro Day can be a little dangerous for a scout, even if he's just checking out a would-have-been Dartmouth basketball player.

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Speaking of basketball, if you tuned in ESPN last night or this morning you couldn't help but see the final seconds of Princeton's dramatic win over Harvard in the Ivy League basketball playoff for the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. (Those last seconds are included in the video at the top of this Boston Globe story and there's an angle I hadn't seen before in this video of the final shot.) A couple of thoughts:

• Although Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan is among those calling for the Crimson to get the first-ever Ivy League at-large bid to the tournament, it would be a huge upset if it happened. Brackets guru Joe Lunardi does not include Harvard in his "final four out" projection, although on the plus side, he does have Harvard in the next group of hopefuls. Green Alert Take: If the NCAA wants a little good "pub" in these days of Jim Tressell etc., it might want to sneak the Crimson over the threshold, but don't expect it to happen.

• While the Ivy League's profile is much higher in the world of college hockey, all the newspaper stories and TV reports about Harvard's attempt to end its long NCAA drought show again that basketball rules the day when it comes to national interest. Cornell was a perfect example of that last year. Even Dartmouth got a little love from ESPN today when the sports leader put up a graphic showing the three Ivy League schools with the most NCAA appearances. Princeton and Penn topped the list followed by Dartmouth with seven. (The graphic, which included a Dartmouth logo, also noted that the last of those NCAA appearances was in 1959.)

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Speaking of hockey, the Dartmouth men's team scored in overtime last night to beat Harvard, 2-1, and force a decisive Game Three in the ECAC Quarterfinals tonight at Thompson Arena. The women's hockey team, meanwhile, saw its season end one game short of the Frozen Four with a 7-1 loss at No 2 Cornell.

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While the skaters were somehow managing to play despite being in the midst of exams, the football team – which the Ivy League apparently doesn't deem capable of doing the same thing – was ... wait for it ...

... just watching.