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It's time to continue our College Basketball odds series with a Princeton-Penn prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Princeton-Penn.
There are bubble battles in college basketball. There are conference races. Then there is the Ivy League, which is unique in the sport.
Most conferences just have a conference tournament in which all of their teams compete. It is true that with conference realignment and expansion, some of the bigger power conferences, such as the Big Ten, aren't allowing all of their teams to automatically play in the conference tournament.
The Big Ten has 18 schools and will not let in the last-place teams, so that its already-large tournament won't become even more bloated and unwieldy. (Besides, who wants to see a 15-versus-18 play-in game in a conference tournament? Absolutely no one does. Such a move makes sense.)
The Ivy League, however, has become a one-of-a-kind conference. Rather than not have a conference tournament, and rather than have a full-membership conference tournament, the Ivy does something in the middle, squarely between those two extremes. The Ivy League invites its top-four finishers to play in a two-game playoff — semifinal and final — for its NCAA Tournament automatic bid.
It's not a full-on, three-day conference tournament, but the first-place team doesn't get the automatic bid (which it did for a long time until the Ivy League relented and allowed for this multigame playoff.) The Ivy League college basketball playoff in early March has delivered highly theatrical and dramatic games which have added to the league's basketball brand.
Notably, the league has not suffered within the NCAA Tournament, either. Yale won the Ivy League playoff event in 2024 and then shocked Auburn in the NCAA Tournament.
The fact that a conference's top-four teams will play for the NCAA Tournament makes the races for the top-four spots that much more interesting to watch. Princeton and Penn have a month left to grab an inside position and punch their ticket for a playoff spot.
Here are the Princeton-Penn College Basketball Odds, courtesy of FanDuel
College Basketball Odds: Princeton-Penn Odds
Princeton: -7.5 (-102)
Moneyline: -295
Penn: +7.5 (-120)
Moneyline: +235
Over: 143.5 (-110)
Under: 143.5 (-110)
How to Watch Princeton vs Penn
Time: 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT
TV: ESPN Plus
*Watch college basketball LIVE with fuboTV (Get Access | Save $30)*
Why Princeton Will Cover The Spread/Win
Princeton is 4-2 in the Ivy League. The Tigers are 15-6 and have played well over most of the past five weeks. Princeton was 4-3 after seven games and started its season in sluggish fashion. The Tigers have gotten better over the larger run of time.
They are at their best when they dig in on defense. Three of their four Ivy League wins in the first month of the conference season have come in games in which they held opponents under 70 points. This is in contract with Penn, which has given up at least 86 points in three of its four Ivy League losses.
Princeton seems to have room in which to grow, while Penn seems to have a very low ceiling and does not have the defensive toughness needed to keep this game close or at least to give bettors the confidence to think it can keep this game close.
Why Penn Will Cover The Spread/Win
Princeton has lost two of its last three games. It's true that the Tigers played a very good month of January as a whole, but their more recent form has not been nearly as sharp as the first half of the month of January, when Princeton was really rolling.
Princeton has been an ordinary team for a good portion of its season. The Tigers did straighten themselves out for several weeks and were undeniably good for a period of time, but the recent two-game losing skid points to possible regression. If that Princeton team shows up here, Penn will cover.
Final Princeton-Penn Prediction & Pick
Our lean is to Penn, but we do not have a strong feel for this game. Maybe consider a live in-game play.
Final Princeton-Penn Prediction & Pick: Penn +7.5
