Princeton defeats Penn, faces Harvard
Princeton and Harvard are set for their toughest test yet: a one-game playoff for the Ivy League championship that sends the winner to the NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers forced a tie for the title and the playoff with a 70-58 win over Penn Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Princeton and Harvard will play Saturday at Yale's John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn., in a one-game playoff for the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
It will be the seventh playoff in Ivy history, and the first since Yale, Penn and Princeton were tied at the end of the 2001-02 regular season.
Kareem Maddox scored 21 of his 23 points in the second half for the Tigers (24-6, 12-2 Ivy).
Harvard (23-5, 12-2) has not appeared in the NCAA Tournament since 1946, and it was the only Ivy League school that had not won a championship since the conference was formed in 1956-57.
The Tigers started an 11-0 run midway through the second half to the delight of the hundreds of fans dressed in orange. Princeton ran plays for easy baskets inside to chip away at an eight-point deficit but pulled away with three-pointers. Patrick Saunders started the run with a three, and Douglas Davis and Saunders hit consecutive treys for a 55-42 lead.
Ian Hummer scored 14 points for Princeton and the Tigers made 8 of 16 three-pointers. Tyler Bernardini led Penn (13-15, 7-7) with 18 points.
Butler returns
Matt Howard scored 18 points and Shelvin Mack 14 as Butler (23-9) spurted away in the second half to a 59-44 victory over host Wisconsin-Milwaukee to win the Horizon League title.
Oakland rolls
Keith Benson had 28 points and 14 rebounds as Oakland, Mich. (25-9) squandered a 45-33 halftime lead but then surged away to a 90-76 victory over Oral Roberts in the Summit League title game in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Ark-Little Rock wins title
Solomon Bozeman's deep three-pointer with 1.5 seconds remaining gave Arkansas-Little Rock a 64-63 win over North Texas for the Sun Belt title in Hot Springs, Ark., and sent the Trojans (19-16) to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 21 years. North Texas led 59-52 with less than 2 minutes left.-- AP
