Symposium Kicks Off 'Killer P' Weekend

With this weekend’s arrival of Penn and Princeton—who have combined to win at least a share of the Ivy League’s last 15 championships and 30 of the last 32—the eternal imbalance in Ivy men’s basketball will yet again be on full display.

This year, there will even be a discussion group to talk about it.

Noted sports commentator John Feinstein and Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan will headline a symposium at Harvard’s Murr Center this afternoon entitled “Harvard and March Madness: Mutually Exclusive?”

The game scheduled to follow figures to drive home the point. Harvard (11-10, 3-5 Ivy), the only Ivy team to never win a league title, will host the Quakers, who are in position for their 22nd league crown, at Lavietes Pavilion at 7 p.m. Fresh off their clutch win over Brown last week in Philadelphia, Penn (15-5) owns a perfect 7-0 Ivy mark.

“Based on history, Harvard and March Madness would seem to be mutually exclusive,” Ryan said yesterday in advance of today’s event. “We all know about the Penn-Princeton tyranny in the Ivies. I really like [Harvard coach] Frank [Sullivan], and I’d love to see him come up with a team that could challenge for the title and the bid, but Harvard has never really been close, and won’t be until they can win a game in both Jadwin and the Palestra.”

The Crimson was swept during its road trip to Penn and Princeton earlier this month. Harvard hasn’t won at either venue during Sullivan’s tenure, but has upset Penn at Lavietes each of the last two years.

Tonight’s game is sold out. A limited number of tickets are still available for tomorrow’s contest against Princeton (11-9, 5-2), a game which took on added interest yesterday when the Tigers officially announced they have lost leading scorer and rebounder Spencer Gloger for the rest of the season. The 6’7 forward has been declared academically ineligible.

“I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to help my teammates for the rest of this season,” Gloger said in a statement. “I’ll be pulling for them.”

Gloger is the second of the league’s top three scorers to be ruled ineligible in the last two weeks. On Feb. 11, star Harvard guard Patrick Harvey was officially required to withdraw from school for academic reasons.

At tonight’s symposium, Feinstein and Ryan will give keynote addresses, to be followed by a panel discussion. Dave Gavitt, former Big East commissioner and CEO of the Boston Celtics, will join Feinstein and Ryan on the panel.

The event is part of Harvard’s year-long commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Harvard-Yale crew race that marked the nation’s first intercollegiate sporting event. The symposium begins at 3:15 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

—Staff writer Brian E. Fallon can be reached at bfallon@fas.harvard.edu.