PRINCETON NO. 1 IN IVY PRESEASON POLL
RINCETON, N.J. – The Princeton Tigers, the defending Ivy League champions, have been selected as the No. 1 team in the conference's preseason poll, the league announced today. Princeton received 14 of the 17 first-place votes, to finish with 133 voting points. Penn earned two first-place votes to take second at 107 points while Harvard secured the other first-place vote and 104 points. Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia and Cornell round out the poll. The Tigers have been predicted to finish either first or second in the poll each of the past nine seasons. The defending Ivy League champions return four of five starters from last year's group. Bella Alarie, the 2018 Ivy League Player of the Year, returns following a year where she averaged 13.3 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.6 blocks, 2.3 assists per game. She shot 48.9 percent from the floor and had 12 double-doubles. The road to another Ivy title starts at home against Penn (Jan. 5). After a break for finals, the first conference road trip is at Columbia (Feb.1) and Cornell (Feb. 2). Yale (Feb. 8) and Brown (Feb. 9) come to Jadwin before the Tigers head to Harvard (Feb. 15) and Dartmouth (Feb. 16). This time, Cornell (Feb. 22) and Columbia (Feb. 23) head to Princeton before a jaunt to Penn (Feb. 26). March gets started with Dartmouth (Mar. 1) and Harvard (Mar. 2) at home before the regular season comes to an end at Brown (Mar. 8) and Yale (Mar. 9). The 2019 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments will be held on the campus of Yale University at the John J. Lee Amphitheater at Payne Whitney Gymnasium on March 16th and 17th.