By Sam Federman

No conference in college basketball has fewer teams than the Ivy League's Ancient Eight.
Thus, no conference in college basketball plays fewer conference games than the Ivy League's 14 per team.
Additionally, no other conference in the country permits fewer teams into its conference tournament than the Ivy League's four.
The result? Every single game matters a whole lot more.
Four of the next five weeks, the Ivy League will do what no other conference in college basketball does - play games on back-to-back days.
And it's for the most Ivy League reason possible.
“We have a philosophy of putting Ivy League games on weekends as much as possible to minimize missed class time,” Robin Harris told The Athletic in March 2024.
So on Friday, with all classes presumably wrapped up for the teams' members until Monday, four Ivy League teams will hop on a bus to for the first set of back-to-backs, a grueling challenge of everything that Ivy League basketball is.
Each team has a travel partner - Yale has Brown, Harvard has Dartmouth, Cornell has Columbia, and Princeton has Penn - and two of the partner pairs go on the road each week (or at least for four of the next five), visiting one of the other pairs.
Each team has already played four games, which may not sound like a lot with one day before February, and it's not - but it is 30% of the conference's schedule.
This week, Yale and Brown visit Princeton and Penn, while Harvard and Dartmouth visit Columbia and Cornell. (Yes, Columbia and Cornell are four hours apart, yes, they're travel partners, who else are you going to pair Cornell with?)
On Friday night at 5 p.m., Jon Rothstein won't be sending out his customary "Can you imagine if a compelling non-power conference game tipped off RIGHT NOW every weekday at 5 PM ET?" tweet, because Princeton and Yale go head to head, with the Bulldogs looking to hold on to the inside track for the regular season title.
Princeton is coming off of a home loss to Cornell last Saturday - its first conference loss at home to a team not named Yale since the last game before the world shut down - while Yale is undefeated, 4-0, in the league.
Despite losing Matt Knowling, August Mahoney, and Danny Wolf, three of the top players in the Ivy League, James Jones brought back John Poulakidas and Bez Mbeng, both now seniors, and developed a group around them. Rotational players like Nick Townsend, Samson Aletan, and Casey Simmons have taken major steps forward this year, while freshman Isaac Celiscar has made an immediate impact.
After starting 6-6, Yale has won five in a row since the New Year, and only one of those games has even been decided by fewer than 15 points.
Princeton on the other hand has made a habit of pulling off escapes. On opening night, the Tigers came back from double digits to beat Iona with late free throws by Xaivian Lee. Malik Abdullahi delieverd the game-winner against Northeastern later that week. Caden Pierce made his mark in an 83-82 win over Rutgers, while Dalen Davis capped off a 15-point second half comeback against Akron.
Lee played the hero with a stepback three to take down Dartmouth in Hanover, then hit the same move - but to his other side - to complete a 20-point comeback against Columbia.
On a crucial weekend, getting two good teams in their gym, Princeton needs to protect its home floor and reassert itself at the top of the Ivy League. However, if Yale can come out with a road win, it would move two games ahead of Princeton at 5-0, with Cornell having the chance to pull a game ahead of the Tigers should the Big Red defeat Dartmouth.
On Saturday, Yale travels to the Palestra to take on a Penn team coming off of its two best performances of the season, but the Quakers have to get past Brown and the dynamic Kino Lilly on Friday. Then, the Bears - who defeated Princeton in the Ivy semifinal last year, go to Jadwin themselves on Saturday.
14.2% of the Ivy League's season happens over the span of 27 hours. Who will step up to the plate?