Defending Champion Princeton Favored In Ivy Madness
The 2024 Ivy League Odds Favor Defending Champion Princeton

Yale-Cornell Semifinal Might Be the Best Game of Ivy Madness
For just the second time since the start of the Ivy League men’s basketball tournament, the tournament host will not be in the field as Columbia finished sixth in the Ivy League during the regular season. Defending tournament champion Princeton is listed by the 2024 Ivy League odds as the favorite.
The tournament gets underway on Saturday at 11 a.m. ET when No. 4 seed Brown meets up with No. 1 seed Princeton followed by the Cornell-Yale semifinal at 2 p.m. ET. The championship game is at noon on Sunday and it will air on ESPN. All three games will be played at Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium in New York.
Top-seeded Princeton is priced at -120 to win the Ivy League men’s basketball tournament and become the first back-to-back winner since the tournament debuted in 2017. Yale has +200 odds and Cornell comes in at +350 in the Ivy League title odds. Brown is well back at +2500 in the championship odds.
When looking at the odds to win March Madness, Yale leads the way among Ivy League teams at +30000.
Keep on reading for more on what could be one of the more competitive of this weekend’s conference tournaments even if none of the four teams in the field are included in the NCAA rankings.
A Three-Team Race?
It might be dangerous to discount Brown’s chances when looking at the NCAAB matchups since the Bears went to New Haven and handed Yale an overtime loss on the final day of the regular season to deny the Bulldogs the opportunity to earn a share of the regular season title.
However, Princeton, Cornell, and Yale seem to be a step above Brown based on this year’s results. Keep that in mind when looking at the 2024 Ivy League odds.
Five of the head-to-head matchups between the four tournament teams during the regular season were decided by three points or less so buckle up for this tournament.
Princeton beat Brown 70-60 on the road and 72-63 at home. The Tigers were favored by 6.5 points in the first game and by 13.5 points in the rematch.
Yale beat Cornell by two points as a 7.5-point favorite only to have the Big Red take the second game by three points as the 2.5-point favorite.
A Look At the Numbers Game
Cornell led the Ivy League in winning percentage against the college basketball spread with a 15-11 mark against Division I teams. Brown isn’t far behind at 16-12 followed by Princeton at 14-11 and Yale at 14-11-2. That could factor into the 2024 Ivy League odds.
Cornell is 11-8 against the spread as a favorite followed by Yale at 11-8-1 and Princeton at 11-9. Brown only covered in four of its 10 games as the favorite and the Bears will not be favored in this tournament.
Cornell and Yale are tied with Harvard for the Ivy League lead with 16 games finishing over the total. Fourteen of Brown’s 28 games went over the total while Princeton had 11 games go over the total and that was ahead of only Dartmouth.
When considering potential player props, keep in mind that Brown’s Kino Lilly Jr. is the leading scorer in the Ivy League at 18.4 points per game. Princeton’s Xaivian Lee (17.7), and Caden Pierce (16.3) are other top scorers. Yale’s Danny Wolf is the top rebounder.
What About March Madness?
It is looking like the Ivy League will be limited to one bid yet again.
Princeton‘s No. 48 NCAA NET rankings looks pretty good until a deeper dive shows that the Tigers have no Quad 1 games on their resume and are 2-3 in Quad 2 games.
Yale does have three Quad 1 games but lost all three of them. Two Quad 3 losses and two Quad 4 losses have the Bulldogs are No. 87 in the NCAA NET ranking. Cornell is currently 90th in the NET rankings and would likely jump ahead of Yale in the NET rankings with a win in the semifinals.
Princeton is showing up as a No. 11 seed in many of the March Madness bracket projections.
A Look Back
The No. 1 seed has reached the Ivy League tournament final each time but the No. 2 seed has won each of the last three titles.
The No. 4 seed is winless in the short history of the men’s Ivy League tournament while the only No. 3 seed to advance to the finals was Yale in 2017 with a 73-71 win over Harvard.
In last year’s tournament, top-seeded Yale had no issues with Cornell on the way to the 80-60 win while Princeton held on for a 77-70 win over Penn.
Princeton used a 12-4 run to take an 11-point lead en route to the 74-65 win as the 3.5-point underdog in the matchup with Yale.
For NCAAB predictions, analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.