behind the numbers

Ivy League Standings:
1. Princeton 6-3
1. Yale 6-3
1. Pennsylvania 6-3
4. Brown 5-4
5. Harvard 5-5
5. Columbia 5-5
7. Cornell 3-7
8. Dartmouth 2-8

Yale's leaders:
Scoring:
Chris Leanza 14.6
Rebounding:
Neil Yanke 6.4
Assists:
Chris Leanza 3.5

Cornell's leaders:
Scoring:
Ray Mercedes 12.6
Rebounding:
Greg Barratt 7.5
Assists:
Wallace Prather 2.2

Columbia's leaders:
Scoring:
Craig Austin 17.4
Rebounding:
Chris Wiedemann 6.0
Assists:
Derrick Mayo 2.5

Center of attention:

Guard Chris Leanza, SY '03 may lead the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game, but center Neil Yanke's, MC '01, play has been the key to the Bulldogs' success. Leanza has scored more than 20 points in four games this season, but three of them have been losses. When Yanke scores above his season average of 12.4 points per game, however, the Bulldogs sport an impressive 7-3 mark. In the Bulldogs' nine wins, Yanke has boasted a 14.8 scoring average, and in the 10 losses he has played in, he has struggled to reach double-digits (9.7). In fact, the team's record when Yanke does not score 10 points or more is a dismal 1-6. And don't forget that the team dropped all three games Yanke missed due to injury.

The big `D':

The pundits always say defense wins games, and the Bulldogs seem to have bought into that philosophy. In their six Ivy League wins, they have shut down opponents, holding them to a sickly 37.4 percent shooting average from the field. In their three losses, however, Ivy opponents have managed to shoot 51.2 percent from the floor. Luckily for the Bulldogs, neither Cornell nor Columbia, this weekend's foes, shoot particularly well to begin with:

Field goal percentage:
Cornell: 38.8
Columbia: 41.1
Yale: 41.0

The Bulldogs' games against Columbia on Fri., Feb. 24 and Cornell on Sat., Feb. 25 will be broadcast on WYBC.

—Compiled by Joey Ax

Back to Sports...