Soft Pretzel Logic

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Greetings from the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, where it's 29 degrees and snowing as I wait to start the trip to Washington. It's one of those classic commuter airports, where the gift shop is combined with the café and the security line doesn't even open until it's time to board.

I covered last night's Penn-Cornell game for the Inquirer, and while the Quakers lost, 87-74, I thought they played their best game of the year and were simply beaten by a much better team. The Big Red are now 6-0 in the Ivy League, and have a grip on the Ancient Eight that any presidential candidate would envy.

Reading the morning's paper online, I see that La Salle also fell but Drexel and Villanova got big wins.

We'll see tomorrow if the Wildcats can keep that momentum going against Georgetown, but I have a feeling that the Hoyas are going to be pretty angry after blowing a lead and losing at Louisville last night. Maybe it was Rick Pitino's change of suits, or maybe it was the resurgence of Cardinals center David Padgett (both of which are dissected here), but I'm sure the Hoyas won't see it that way.

As for today, there might not be a better game anywhere in the country than St. Joe's at Xavier. It would be a monster win for the Hawks if they can get it, but it's going to be really, really hard.

Now about the weather here in central New York, which is just as bad as I feared it would be. The sun was shining when I went for a frigid but otherwise pleasant walk downtown this morning. But it started snowing soon after I started the six-mile drive over here, and it was coming down so hard a few minutes ago that I couldn't see the plane on the tarmac just a few hundred feet away.

It's lightened up a bit somewhat, and checking the radar it seems like things could clear up in time for my 1:30 p.m. departure, but I'd better not jinx it.

I'm fairly sure that turboprop is what I'll be boarding to fly to LaGuardia, where I'll have a two-hour layover before taking a proper jet to the best airport I've ever been to. National Airport, just a few miles down the Potomac River from the Capitol, is a spectacular piece of architecture, with huge skylights and cool art pieces all over the terminal. The food and shops are quite good as well.

For now, though, that all seems really far away. I'm sure that if I was anywhere else I wouldn't have any shot at leaving on time. They're used to this kind of weather up here, though, so we'll see what happens. I'm certainly glad I have a two-hour layover in Queens instead of something shorter.

My travels on Friday prevented me from writing Crunchy Numbers, and I need to head for security soon (at least in theory). But in order to keep the week-by-week ranking comparison fresh, I've put one together that includes results up to today. The full edition will return this coming Friday.