Correction appended
It's a testament to the sad state of Dartmouth's major sports teams when the most exciting news in the sports world comes from Cambridge. Harvard's men's basketball team went on the road two weeks ago and handily defeated Boston College, a consistent contender from the nation's strongest college basketball conference.
Simply beating a major conference school on the road is a major accomplishment for an Ivy League squad, but the story is all the more remarkable because Boston College had beaten the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels on the road just three days earlier.
North Carolina, at the time undefeated, was the unanimous No. 1 team in the country, and talk had been swirling around about this Tar Heel team being the best squad since the last undefeated team in college basketball, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.
Boston College quieted that talk rather swiftly, and Harvard, in turn, humbled the Eagles. By the transitive property, Harvard was the best college basketball team in all the land.
Let's be serious though. The Big Green lost by one measly point at home against Harvard just three days later, and Dartmouth is 2-13 on the year. Not exactly the follow-up performance the Crimson were looking for, I'm sure.
Still, Harvard is obviously good enough to win the Ivy League championship and earn a bid to the big dance in March, right? Well, yes and no. Yes, they are good enough to win the league championship, but no, they will not win it.
While Harvard is one of only two teams in the Ancient Eight with an overall winning record on the year (9-6), the Crimson has to prove it can beat Cornell and avoid letdowns like we saw at Leede Arena last weekend. I don't think either is possible.
Cornell is still the best squad in the conference, as much as I hate to say it. Basketball may be the only activity Cornell is currently better at than Dartmouth, for as Dwight from "The Office" brilliantly exclaimed, "Dartmouth is the vastly superior Ivy League school."
But I have to admit Cornell is indeed better on the hardwood. The best in the Ivy League, in fact.
The difference between Harvard and Cornell is this: While Dartmouth has shown that anybody can potentially beat Harvard, nobody in the Ivies has proven that Cornell is mortal.
Last year, the Big Red swept through conference play with a perfect 14-0 record, and Cornell has already started this season's in-conference play 1-0, handily defeating Columbia, 71-59, last Saturday.
Ryan Wittman has been lighting up the court for the Big Red, averaging a stellar 20.1 points per game through the team's first 17 games. Overall, Cornell is 11-6 and is ranked 109th in the RPI. Harvard, even after its high-profile win, is ranked 207th.
Cornell's only losses have come at the hands of St. Johns, Indiana, Minnesota (ranked), St. Josephs, Syracuse (ranked in the top ten nationally) and Siena. All of those contests were away games for the Big Red.
I watched the game between Cornell and Indiana. Going into the game, I thought it was a game Indiana could very easily lose, especially given the Hoosiers' current state of disarray.
The Hoosiers were pushed to the limit on a court they rarely lose on.
I can confidently say that the win over Cornell has been Indiana's biggest win of this season so far. The Big Red is a damn good team.
So let's set the record straight once and for all. While Harvard's win over Boston College and transitive title as the best team in the country is impressive, Cornell is still the team to beat in the Ivy League this season. No team proved it was able to beat the Big Red in its first and second tries last season, and I'm not sure anybody will do any better with their third and fourth tries this year.
Enough about Cornell. I feel disgusted with myself for writing that much about them.
The Big Green gets a second shot at Harvard this weekend, this time on the road. I can't say that Dartmouth will take over as the No. 1 team in the country with a win over the Crimson on Saturday, but I'm pretty sure that would make us No. 2, which I bet most Dartmouth fans would be quite satisfied about.
The original version of this column incorrectly stated that Cornell University basketball player Louis Dale had graduated. In fact, Dale is an active junior point guard for Cornell.
