Ivy

Ivy the Kiwi? Reviewed for Wii; also available for Nintendo DS From: Prope, XSeed Games Age rating: Everyone (comic mischief) If you squint hard enough to see through the Wii's forest of ill-devised motion-control tech demos, half-baked mini-game collections, and one-trick peripherals, you might be lucky enough to spot a game like Ivy the Kiwi?, a sublime example of a game that homes in on one thing the Wii does best and then takes perfect advantage of it without any unnecessary fuss.

When Sam Ivy played high school ball for Webster Groves in St. Louis, he wasn't able to make the obligatory summer-camp showcase rounds. His mother died while he was in the 10th grade, and his time and energy then became channeled into such things as trying to keep a roof over his family and food in the refrigerator. But despite spending his summers working in his father's janitorial business instead of trying to make a name for himself on the court, he wound up at Wake Forest.

He's got the perfect name for ESPN's Sports Center. When the videotape shows Wake Forest's Sam Ivy taking it strong to the hole, can't you just hear Chris Berman calling him "Poison"? Last night, in the opening game of the Jostens Classic at the Palestra, Ivy certainly was poison to Canisius. The 6-foot-7, 225-pound power forward exploded for a career-high 34 points to lead the Demon Deacons to an 82-72 victory. The win sent Wake Forest (3-2) into tonight's 9:15 championship game against Villanova, an 83-80 winner over La Salle in last night's second game.

Penn junior guard Zack Rosen has been selected All-Ivy League for the second consecutive year. Rosen is the 17th Penn player to earn first-team honors multiple times. He led the Quakers with 14.3 points per game. In Ivy play, he was 12th in scoring and second in assists. He surpassed 1,000 career points during the season. Quakers senior Jack Eggleston was selected honorable mention. Eggleston averaged 13.2 points and a team-high 8.0 rebounds per game. Harvard junior forward Keith Wright was selected player of the year.

IT WAS this kind of night at the Palestra: Six minutes into the second half, Princeton had missed exactly six shots, was shooting nearly 74 percent and trailed Penn by nine points. If there was doubt about the Ivy challenger to Harvard this season, Penn's performance in the 225th game against its archrival strongly suggested that it will be the team that plays on 33rd Street. On the night he passed his coach on his school's all-time scoring list, Penn senior Zack Rosen played point guard as if he were conducting an orchestra - moving the ball, the defenders, his teammates and himself to a rhythm only he felt.

As expected, Penn sophomore point guard Zack Rosen was named to the all-Ivy League first team yesterday. Teammate Jack Eggleston, a junior forward, garnered second-team honors. Rosen and three seniors, Harvard's Jeremy Lin and Cornell's Ryan Wittman and Jeff Foote, were unanimous selections by the league's eight coaches. Cornell's Louis Dale, another senior, joined them on the first team. Rosen is the Quakers' first first-team pick since Mark Zoller and Ibrahim Jaaber in the 2006-07 season.

Penn has won the last three Ivy basketball titles, five of the last six and seven of the last nine. The Quakers have finished lower than second once since 1991. That was a decade ago. But they aren't favored to four-peat. Or even finish runner-up. That's what happens when you have to replace the two-time Ivy Player of the Year (Ibrahim Jaaber), another first-team All-Big 5 guy (Mark Zoller) and another 3-year starter (Steve Danley). During the offseason they lost Tommy McMahon, who likely would have started, due to hip surgery.

THE FIRST Ivy League football champion (Yale) was officially crowned in 1956. Since then only one team has won three consecutive solo titles. That was Penn, from 1984-86 (after the Quakers also had shared the top spot in both 1982 and '83). But the 1985 team lost once (at Harvard) in league play. Now, Al Bagnoli's guys are in position to either match or surpass that. The Quakers have gone unbeaten in the Ivies the last 2 years. And with a lot back, they've been picked to finish first once again.

Nothing gets Yvonne McClatchy's holiday heartstrings going like a sea of sprightly poinsettias in their glistening foil-covered pots. Like many of us, she instinctively reaches for red. It's not just habit. She truly loves the color and the look. She's got her traditional plant gifts, too, with cyclamen usually topping the list. Put it in a Christmasy pot and she's there. But this year, as the Berwyn gardener cruises the aisles at Waterloo Gardens in Devon, she finds herself thinking different thoughts.

Snow was falling yesterday at Wrigley Field, and tomorrow the Phillies will be finished playing the Chicago Cubs this season. That's sad news on a lot of levels. When Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt was still playing and when Dallas Green left Philadelphia to become the Cubs' general manager, this was one of baseball's top rivalries. The Phillies would visit Wrigley Field three times a year. They would see the brown ivy in April and the green ivy in June and July, then they would see it fade to brown again in late September.

Nasir Harker, an 11-year-old student at the KIPP Charter School in North Philadelphia, knows everything about wealthy Ivy League colleges like Penn, Princeton, and Harvard: They're the places where people in the movies get to go to college. On Wednesday, Nasir's chances of attending one of those schools increased when the University of Pennsylvania announced it will become the 10th school — and the first in the Ivy League — to join forces with the nonprofit group to help more low-income students complete college.

THE IVY LEAGUE athletic directors have decided not to move forward with proposals for conference tournaments in men's and women's basketball, the league announced Thursday. The coaches had proposed a four-team tournament, but it would need to have cleared three stages to be adopted. The first stage was the athletics directors, who discussed the issue at their annual meetings in Red Bank, N.J. "After careful consideration of these proposals, the athletics directors decided that our current method of determining the Ivy League champion and our automatic bid recipient to the NCAA Championship is the best model moving forward," Ivy League executive director Robin Smith said in a statement.

The Ivy League athletic directors have decided not to move forward with proposals for conference tournaments in men's and women's basketball, the league announced Thursday. The coaches had proposed a four-team tournament, but it would need to have cleared three stages to be adopted. The first stage was the atheltics directors, who discussed the issue at their annual meetings in Red Bank, N.J. "After careful consideration of these proposals, the athletics directors decided that our current method of determining the Ivy League champion and our automatic bid recipient to the NCAA Championship is the best model moving forward," Ivy League executive director Robin Smith said in a statement.

Princeton assistant men's track coach Steve Dolan calls senior Donn Cabral the ultimate competitor. Cabral's teammates refer to him as Track Jesus, because they trust him. "We know he's a warrior," sophomore Tom Hopkins said. Late Friday afternoon at Franklin Field, Cabral had to be. Because just about every other anchor in the closing 1,600-meter leg of the Penn Relays Distance Medley Championship of America race was within spitting distance of him. From the time he took the baton until they all headed around the last turn, they were virtually together, 13 strong if you're keeping score.

Every few years, a proposal to start a postseason tournament for Ivy League basketball is pushed forward. The coaches recently proposed a four-team tournament, but the key word is "proposed. " If adopted, and there are three layers that the proposal would have to pass, it would be modeled on the lacrosse tournament that was proposed about 2006 and began in 2010. In other words, don't get in line for tickets. The Ivy League athletic directors will meet May 8 to 10. They may talk about the proposal.

EVERY FEW years, a proposal to start a postseason tournament for Ivy League basketball gets pushed forward. The coaches have recently proposed a four-team tournament, but the key word is "proposed. " If adopted, and there are three layers that the proposal would have to pass, it would be modeled on the lacrosse tournament that was proposed around 2006 and began in 2010. In other words, don't get in line for tickets. The Ivy athletic directors will meet May 8 to 10. They may talk about the proposal.

ZACK ROSEN is Penn's all-time leader in assists (575) and minutes (4,080). He is third in scoring (1,677 points). He is the only player in school history to have more than 100 assists in each of his four seasons. Some day, the senior point guard may look at those numbers and smile. It is, however, what Rosen does not have that is most important to him. Neither he nor his senior teammates, Tyler Bernardini, Rob Belcore and Mike Howlett, has an Ivy League title. They can rectify that by winning tonight at Princeton.

AROUND THE CITY PLAYING FOR BANNER FIRST Penn will play for an Ivy League championship tomorrow at Princeton. In the Ivy, co-champions are considered champions. If the Quakers win, they will then play Harvard on Saturday at a neutral site for the Ivy's automatic NCAA bid. After crushing Yale at the Palestra, 68-47, Penn (19-11, 11-2 Ivy) needs a win tomorrow to tie Harvard (26-4, 12-2 Ivy). Penn coach Jerome Allen said: "It was the best 20 minutes of team defense we played all year long.

Penn took a giant step down its improbable path toward a first Ivy League championship in five years with a 68-47 rout of Yale at the Palestra on Saturday. If Penn wins at archrival Princeton on Tuesday, it will force a one-game playoff with Harvard next weekend for the conference's automatic NCAA tournament bid. The Crimson won at Cornell, 67-63, to remain a half-game ahead of Penn in the standings. If Penn (19-11, 11-2 Ivy) loses at Princeton, Harvard (26-4, 12-2) will earn the NCAA bid. The Ivy League office said Saturday night that it expects to announce by Monday afternoon details about where and when a playoff would take place.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Oliver McNally made four free throws in the final 20 seconds as Harvard held off Cornell, 67-63, in Ithaca, N.Y., on Saturday night to clinch at least a share of its second straight Ivy League title. The Crimson (26-4, 12-2), who have concluded their regular season, need a Penn loss Tuesday at Princeton to clinch the crown outright and earn an NCAA berth for the first time since their only appearance in 1946. After the Big Red (12-16, 7-7) took their first lead at 30-29, Brandyn Curry hit four straight three-pointers to give the Crimson a 41-34 advantage with 14:04 left.