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NCAA Basketball: 10 biggest takeaways from opening week of 2021-22 season

By Trevor Sinodhinos

Feb 16, 2021; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Purdue Boilermakers forward Trevion Williams (50) dunks the ball in front of Michigan State Spartans forward Thomas Kithier (15) during the second half of the game at Mackey Arena. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 16, 2021; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Purdue Boilermakers forward Trevion Williams (50) dunks the ball in front of Michigan State Spartans forward Thomas Kithier (15) during the second half of the game at Mackey Arena. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports /
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NCAA Basketball Tommy Amaker Harvard Crimson (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
NCAA Basketball Tommy Amaker Harvard Crimson (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images) /

Ivy League is ready to play

There were 612 days between Yale’s 83-69 loss to Harvard and their 88-42 win over Vassar, then three days later Yale defeated Massachusetts 91-71.  Yale is not the only Ivy League team to start the season off strong after sitting out the 2020-21 season as a result of COVID-19.

Princeton had an expected easy time versus Rutgers-Camden prior to getting a 66-62 victory over South Carolina. The most impressive outcome might be a game that ended up in the loss column for Brown when they lost to North Carolina 94-87, a game they were up by three at halftime.

The biggest question mark coming into the season had to be the readiness of the Ivy League having sat out the 2020-21 season, it was expected and rightly so that it would take the teams substantially longer to get back into basketball form. The true test of the league’s mettle will occur prior to the conference schedule starting up as several teams have resume-building games ahead of them.

Brown will face Creighton in mid-November and Maryland in late December, Havard may have lost to Iona by three in overtime on Saturday, but they have Kansas in late December. Cornell will have an opportunity to make a very big impact for the Ivy League as they play some opponents from Power Conferences that they legitimately can beat. Cornell will battle Penn State from the Big Ten and ACC members Syracuse and Virginia Tech. After a week the Ivy League is showing no rust but we will have to wait until the end of December to see if they still look as shiny.

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