If you know only one thing about squash (and that's probably all you know) it's that Trinity College in Connecticut has the longest winning streak of any intercollegiate team in any sport at any level—224 consecutive team matches, after their victory over Yale in yesterday's national championship. It was their 12th straight national title. This one was sealed when senior Baset Chaudhry knocked off freshman Kenneth Chan in straight sets. Chaudhry, the top-ranked singles player in the country, celebrated by screaming in Chan's much smaller and slightly terrified face. A somewhat undignified, but possibly understandable end to a rather intense match that was reportedly filled with jawing on both sides.

But what the video doesn't show is that after Chaudhry left the court to celebrate with his teammates, he apparently went back in and shoved Chan as he tried to exit. (All the videos of the match mysteriously cut out before things get pushy. Video updated with a more complete version of events.) Hmm. I'm not really familiar with the traditions of the game, but I think that's excessive.

"It wasn't emotions," Chaudhry said. "If you go and look back in the second game when he won a point, he literally came in my face and was eyes-to-eyes."

That seems unlikely, since Chaudhry is 6'5" and looks to have about a full foot on Chan. Nevertheless, Chaudhry did offer a half-hearted apology after the match and looks sufficiently chastised in this photo. That didn't stop Yale's coach from calling it "classless" and suggesting that the player be banned from the upcoming singles championship. You expect that kind of behavior up in Cambridge, but that doesn't fly down here!

On a side note ... what is wrong squash people anyway? Their fans are all hooligans and the star players are obnoxious brats. I thought this was a dignified game between gentlemen. When someone taunts him on the court, a gentleman turns the other cheek. Then uses his fraternity connections to orchestrate a hostile takeover of his opponent's commodities trading firm and outsources that guy's job to Thailand. You know, civilized like.

Trinity squashes Yale for Nat'l title [WTNH]
Trinity Defeats Yale; Captures 12th Straight Squash Title [Hartford Courant]
Trinity does it again [Yale Daily News]
Pictures: Trinity Captures Squash Title [CTNow]

Every now and again in the world of college athletics an Ivy League team will outperform the low expectations set for them by the sports-loving public (which typically range from a hair-tousle and an "oh, you" to an atomic wedgie and a swiped sandwich) and become pretty decent. This year two squads of nerds could get invited to the party.

"It certainly feels strange to lead these picks with a couple of teams whose GPAs are more important than their scoring averages," quipped Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis in accordance with the law that any reference to an Ivy League athletics team must include a mention of GPA, calculators, or both.

With Cornell a two-time conference champion, Tommy Amaker coaching Harvard, and both teams earning spots on the NCAA's midseason bracket, it's arguably an important game from a purely basketball perspective. But underlying a good deal of the mainstream media notice — in addition to Davis's picks, ESPN's Andy Katz mentioned Harvard-Cornell as one of the three games he was most looking forward to this weekend — is the story and play of Harvard's senior point guard Jeremy Lin.

(Scroll to Moment #6)

Lin has been slowly amassing attention. Earlier this season he was named a finalist for the Wooden and Cousy awards, and some believe he has a chance to be the first Asian-American drafted by the NBA. In late December, Time Magazine wrote about Lin and the Crimson (requisite nerd-line: "...the Harvard basketball players will be locked in the library instead of pulling off a Cinderella upset") in an article that went on to draw attention to some of the highly unoriginal mal mots directed at him by opposing fans:

Some people still can't look past his ethnicity. Everywhere he plays, Lin is the target of cruel taunts. "It's everything you can imagine," he says. "Racial slurs, racial jokes, all having to do with being Asian." Even at the Ivy League gyms? "I've heard it at most of the Ivies if not all of them," he says. ... according to Harvard teammate Oliver McNally, another Ivy League player called him a C word that rhymes with ink during a game last season. On Dec. 23, during Harvard's 86-70 loss to Georgetown in Washington, McNally says, one spectator yelled "Sweet-and-sour pork!" from the stands.

In their defense, these geniuses really must have been bottling up the clever insults for some time: a piece in this week's Sports Illustrated explains that there are only 18 Asian-American men's basketball players in Division I ("By contrast," it notes, "there are 23 students at Harvard with the last name Lin.")

But most fans love Lin. First-hand accounts from last night's Harvard victory at Columbia spoke of an uncharacteristically packed gymnasium and described crowds of autograph seekers pursuing the point guard, who finished the game with 14 points in just 24 minutes. No doubt some of them were there out of curiosity: one correspondent Twittered that the guy on his left had come to the game after the SI story piqued his attention.

Written by Pablo Torre, the Sports Illustrated piece is slick and filled with amusing details: only at Harvard, for example, would you have Steve Ballmer as a booster (and former statboy!) or recruit "a 6'7" poetry lover with a 42-inch vertical." The story remarks that Harvard has "revis[ed] the media guide to feature alums from John Adams to Barack Obama" (what, no BJ Novak?) and namechecks the monocle.

Torre focuses largely on Lin but also on Crimson coach Tommy Amaker, the former Michigan coach whom I actually remember best from his stint at Seton Hall. (I grew up on a steady diet of New Jersey newspapers, cut me some slack.)

Citing a deeply interesting 2008 New York Times investigation that suggested Amaker and an assistant may have violated NCAA recruiting rules through "aggressive tactics" as well as a lowering of admission standards, Torre noted the Ivy League ultimately found no violations.

But hell hath no fury like a investigative reporter ignored, and the Times' Pete Thamel, author of the 2008 piece, took to Twitter with disdain:

Wounded but diplomatic, Torre struck back, using phrases like "debate nuances" and "taking your Tweet's implication at face value." Because ah, here's the rub: Torre went to Harvard, as Thamel went on to point out. (His chosen phrase, for the record: "Warm fuzzy hug.")

Pieces like Torre's will often summarize to maintain narrative scope; if a reader wants more, the citation's right there. Still, Thamel's not wrong. I would have liked to have seen his eyebrow-raising follow up report mentioned in more depth, as it's germane to Amaker and the transition period that Torre homes in on. But Thamel kind of comes off like a bit of an ass. If he really wanted to hit Torre where it hurts he should have just asked about this awkward sentence!

An institution whose academic prestige is in inverse proportion to its hoops futility, the Crimson has never won even a conference title.

The copy editor must have gone to a state school.

Anyway, I'm sorry to break it to you after you've made it this far (sorry!) but like so many revolutions, the Harvard-Cornell game will not be televised. Seth Davis (who himself jumped into the Twitterfuffle with a mailed-in Michael Vick joke, let the record show) notes that the game can be streamed live on Cornell's website.

He claims he'll be watching. Put down those TI-83's, geeks, and do just the same.

"Harvard School of Basketball" [Sports Illustrated]
"Jeremy Lin: Asian Basketball Star Faces Racial Slurs" [Time]
"Amaker's Move Creates a Clash of Harvard Ideals" [New York TImes]
Image via Go Crimson.

Visiting Harvard won both the men's and women's squash matches this week, but came away complaining about abuse from the crowd.

Dartmouth student Bryan Giudicelli said Thursday he and his soccer teammates are routinely cursed at and heckled while playing on the road and were seeking to create a similarly intimidating atmosphere at Berry. However, he said the soccer players and some Alpha Delta fraternity brothers didn't realize how hostile such behavior would appear in the crowded squash courts.

So far, so good, right? Squash could use a little vitriol, and it's always cute when the Ivies pretend they take their sports seriously. Well, things got a little ugly.

Words such as "dick," "fag" and "——sucker" were repeatedly shouted at the visitors Wednesday, many times with "f———" added as an adjective. Harvard's female players eventually sought the protection of an assistant coach after they said they were called "whores" and "sluts" while they cheered on their male peers. While playing his match, Franklin Cohen was told he had small genitals and asked if he liked bagels, a phrase his mother viewed as a reference to the family's Jewish surname.

Wait, the worst thing they came up with about the Jewish kid was that he likes bagels? As a card-carrying member of the tribe, I say, damn straight. If the Procotols of the Elders of Zion was all about our love of bagels, that would be wonderful. If Kristallnacht had only targeted the bagel stores in Nazi Germany, I'd take that in a second.

And, worst of all about this misplaced racism accusation, the bagels weren't even about the Judaism.

Giudicelli said Susan Cohen confronted his group about the bagel phrase immediately after her son's match and was told it referred to Franklin Cohen having a zero or "bagel" on the scoreboard at a certain juncture in play.

"We discussed whether to say doughnut or bagel and obviously we decided to use the wrong word," said Giudicelli, a junior defender from Emerald Hills, Calif., located between San Francisco and San Jose. "There was no anti-Semitism behind that."

Of course, if they had used the term doughnuts, it probably would have been deemed offensive to the obese or the diabetic. You really can't win.

Dartmouth Students Slur Harvard Athletes During Squash Match [Valley News]

See if this sounds familiar. Yale was leading by three points with 2:25 left in their giant season-defining game against Harvard on Saturday. It was fourth down and they had the ball on their own 26-yard line. Seems like an obvious punting situation, right? (After all, their punter is the best in the Ivy league and was averaging 51 yards per kick for the game.) Well, Williams was apparently so won over by the outpouring of love and affection that Bill Belichick got all week by going for it against the Colts, that he decided to do the Patriots' leader one better. The Bulldogs ran a fake punt that gained 15 yards on an end around run. The only hitch in the plan was that they needed 22.

I'm not sure those Ivy League eggheads read all that statistical analysis defending Belichick very carefully. Oh, sure it was a gutsy gamble that really sent a message. The message is that Yalies are not smart. Seriously, fourth and 22? Harvard got the ball at the Yale 40 and three plays later they scored the winning touchdown, their eighth victory in nine tries over their arch rival. Gah!

Williams has made a bit of a name for himself in his first head coaching season with his frequent and effective use of trick plays, and he claims he did not want to play scared. Plus, he was worried that Harvard had gained momentum and he wanted to "keep our foot on the pedal," because you always want to be going full speed when you drive into a brick wall.

Although, to be fair to the Elis, Williams did go to Stanford. Those West Coast buffoons can't do math for shit.

Williams offers apology to players day after loss [New Haven Register]
Head Coach Pulls a 'Belichick,' Yale Loses to Harvard [Fanhouse]
Harvard-Yale Game 2009 Has Yale Lose with 'Belichick' Call [Associated Content]

Yep, the Ivy League has their own blog set up for the Olympics. Of course ths will mean that you're focusing a ton on fencing, rowing, and other sports that people who aren't rich have never heard of. But imagine the snob appeal. You're not rooting for the richest country in the world, you're rooting for the richest .0001% of the richest country in the world.

And if you get tired of that, why not stroll through the Ivy League record book so you can impress the fellows at the Hamptons this weekend? Harvard Man: "Oh, you went to Columbia? I guess that's not so bad if you don't mind going to a school that has only produced 35 Olympians. Now if you don't mind I'm going to quietly suffocate on my own hot air."

Ivies in China [Ivy League Blog]

The Ivy League is the only conference in the nation that has the balls to give their NCAA tournament slot to their regular season champion. For the third straight year, that will be the Quakers (ever the non-conformists). I am of the opinion that every conference should do it this way.

If you're looking to size up Penn's tournament chances, know that they've lost in the first round the last two years ... by 8 to Texas in '06, and by 20 to Boston College in '05. Also know that they are the Penn Quakers.

So congratulations to them. Four other teams will join them in the bracket this afternoon, as the Atlantic Sun, the SoCon, the Big South, and the Ohio Valley all have their championship games going today. This March Madness business is starting to feel a little bit real.

Penn wins Ivy League title to secure berth in NCAA Tournament [Mercury News]

• 1. Just One More Thing, Ma'am ... Legendary Princeton coach Pete Carrill wore the same worn-out Princeton sweatshirt, bow tie and trench coat to every game, earning him the campus nickname "Columbo." He retired in 1996 after 19 seasons at the university for many reasons, one being Princeton's high tuition making it hard to attract talent. Carrill says that in one case, university officials learned that a recruit's mother had a paper route and subtracted the amount she made from their scholarship offer.

• 2. America's Got Talent. Dartmouth junior forward Jonathan Ball is not only a fan of the Memphis Grizzlies, but is known as "one of the best singers on the Big Green team." A lofty distinction indeed.

• 3. Cool As The Other Side Of The Pillow (Wee!). Yale junior guard Caleb Holmes' father, Mark Holmes, played professional basketball in Iceland.

• 4. Grow Hoof, Grow! Among noted University of Pennsylvania alumni are ninth President of the United States William Henry Harrison, Donald Trump, Noam Chomsky, Gloria Allred, Warren Buffett, and Barbaro ... the latter who technically has not yet graduated.

• 5. Concentrate, Dammit! Students at Brown University do not have "majors" ... they have "concentrations." So, seven members of the men's basketball team "have not yet decided on a concentration." Meanwhile, Cornell University has something called the College of Human Ecology. Is that like, hygiene class?

Oh, those crazy Ivy Leaguers. What won't they do in the name of ribald gridiron revelry?

This video, made by Brown students before their game against Penn, involves the ritualistic torture of the Penn mascot in ways that, if not necessarily likely to make him talk, at the very least will lessen his opportunities at reproduction.

Brown Kidnappers Issue List Of Demands [Ivy Gate Blog]

• 1. Competitive Tanning Also Started Here. Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip features B.D., a character based on Brian Dowling, Yale's quarterback in the late 1960s. Dowling was a first-team All-Ivy League performer in 1967 and 1968, the latter year when Yale went 8-0-1 on its way to a tie for the Ivy championship. In the first eight games, Dowling threw for 1,438 yards and 17 touchdowns. He also finished ninth in the Heisman trophy voting for the season. B.D. has worn a helmet since his first appearance in the Doonesbury comics. He even went to Vietnam with his football helmet on. Eventually, though, the football helmet was replaced with other kinds of headgear, including motorcycle, war combat and riot helmets.

• 2. Or, You Can Play The Madden '03 Video Game. Princeton and Yale's 1903 battle wasn't just a match-up of undefeated teams. It also served as the site for the oldest collegiate football video footage on record, thanks to a Thomas Alva Edison-sponsored production company. The result is a remarkable recording of a game previously witnessed by only the 50,000 spectators on hand. The Library of Congress has obtained the footage and has it available for free online.

• 3. Well, They Are Smart. The students at MIT managed to invade the annual Harvard-Yale matchup
in 1982. After a second-quarter score by Harvard, a weather balloon with the letters "MIT" inflated from underneath the field and exploded into a cloud of dust on the 45-yard line. But what many don't remember is that the prank was so well-constructed it virtually erased the memory of two other MIT pranks in the same game. In that same game in
1982, the MIT band disguised themselves as the Harvard band and played the MIT school song on the field, while MIT students gave out cards that spelled 'MIT' when turned over.

• 4. Run, You Pixies, Run! Sprint football — limited to athletes who weigh 160 or fewer pounds — is an obscure sport played at a handful of Eastern Colleges. Cornell, Penn and Princeton still host it as an intercollegiate sport, as do Army and Navy. Until recently it was known as 'lightweight football' and the only conference was the Eastern Lightweight Football League (the ELF League). When Columbia hosted the sport in the 1960s, current New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft was a member of the team.