Penn–Princeton basketball rivalry

Penn–Princeton basketball rivalry or Princeton–Penn basketball rivalry is a college basketball rivalry between Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania and their respective men's basketball teams, Princeton Tigers and Penn Quakers. Unlike many notable college basketball rivalries, such as Carolina–Duke, which involves teams that often both get invited to the same NCAA tournaments, Notre Dame–UCLA, which involves geographically remote teams, Illinois–Missouri, which involves non-conference rivals, or Alabama–Auburn, which takes a back seat to the football rivalry, this is a rivalry of geographically close, conference rivals, who compete for a single NCAA invitation and consider the basketball rivalry more important than other sports rivalries between the schools. A head-to-head contest has been the final regularly scheduled game of the Princeton season every year since 1995.^[1] Between 1963 and 2007, Princeton or Penn won or shared the Ivy League conference championship every season except 1986 and 1988.^[2] The other seasons in which neither team won or shared the Ivy League title are 1957, 1958, 1962 and 2008–2010.^[2] The two programs dominate Ivy basketball in almost every way. Entering the 2011–12 NCAA Division I men's basketball season, 9 of the ten active Division I basketball head coaches who are Ivy basketball alumni are from these two programs: Penn Jerome Allen (Penn), Matt Langel (Colgate) and Fran McCaffery (Iowa); Princeton - Mitch Henderson (Princeton), Sydney Johnson (Fairfield), Chris Mooney (Richmond), Craig Robinson (Oregon State), Joe Scott (Denver) and John Thompson III (Georgetown).^[3]

Princeton had won 26 conference championships to Penn's 25. Princeton has been undefeated in conference 5 times: 1968–69, 1975–76, 1990–91, 1996–97 & 1997–98. Penn has been undefeated in conference 7 times: 1969–70, 1970–71, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1999–2000 & 2002–03.^[2] Four one-loss Penn teams suffered their only conference loss to Princeton: 1971–72, 1974–75, 1980–81 & 1998–99.^[1][2] The following one-loss Princeton teams suffered their only conference loss to Penn 1976–77, 1980–81 and 2003–04.^[1][2] Note that in the 1980–81 season both teams had one loss, and Princeton won a one-game playoff for the NCAA invitation. Also, in 1996 when both teams had two losses, the 1995–96 Tigers suffered their only conference losses to the 1995–96 Quakers, and Princeton won a one-game playoff for the automatic NCAA invitation.^[1][2]

Princeton has a 24–23 edge in earning the Ivy League conference's bid to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Both teams have advanced to the NCAA Tournament final four once: 1964–65 Tigers and 1978–79 Quakers. Additionally, the 1974–75 Tigers won the 1975 National Invitation Tournament championship.

Series facts

Notes

External links

• ESPNU special