Cornell breaks into nation's top 25

Welcome to the big time, Ivy League basketball.

With a dominating performance against Harvard on Saturday night, Cornell remained undefeated in Ancient Eight play and earned itself the 25th spot in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll of the top college teams. The ranking makes the Big Red the first conference competitor to rank among the nation’s top 25 schools since Princeton finished No. 8 in the final Associated Press poll following the 1997-1998 season. Cornell is the first Ivy League team other than Penn or Princeton—the traditional conference powerhouses—to be ranked since Columbia climbed as high as No. 13 during a seven-week run in 1969-1970.

Cornell’s ascension to national prominence has followed a steady arc. This rise was accented by a thorough 86-50 dismantling of Harvard, another Ancient Eight squad that had been receiving national media attention. The Big Red, who is two spots away from being ranked in the AP poll, saw all five of its starters score in double figures. The league leaders took the game from the opening tip off and never relinquished it. At home in Newman Arena, fans in Ithaca were treated to a dominating performance down low from seven-footer Jeff Foote. Foote finished with a team-high 16 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and three blocked shots.

Beyond the big man’s efforts, a team blessed with scorers showed the variety of weapons at its disposal. Ryan Wittman, one of the team’s more recognizable stars along with Foote, ended the game with 11 points, the lowest scoring total among the starters. Jon Jaques turned in a full score sheet with 14 points, four rebounds, four assists, and two steals, while Chris Wroblewski and Louis Dale rounded out the lineup with 13 points each.

The story in Ithaca was, as it has been all year, one of an unselfish, highly effective offense. Cornell assisted on 22 of its 30 field goals, and turned the ball over a meager eight times. The experienced Big Red never let the visiting Crimson get into a rhythm. Harvard turned the ball over 25 times.

Harvard’s superstar, senior guard Jeremy Lin, posted 19 points on 6-for-9 shooting, but turned the ball over eight times and made only one assist. Despite some offensive blunders, the young and talented Crimson fought hard to keep the game close early. Even with its opponents’ gamely play, the Big Red put any questions about the evening’s final result to rest by halftime, building a 35-17 lead with 3:43 to go behind 8-0 and 14-0 offensive outbursts.

Harvard looked to be getting back into the game in the second half, however, cutting the lead to 46-36 before a strong finish from Cornell turned the contest into a full-fledged blowout. Combined with a 71-37 throttling of struggling Dartmouth, Cornell (18-3, 4-0 Ivy) took both league bouts this weekend by a staggering aggregate 70 points. Harvard (14-4, 3-1 Ivy), on the other hand, limps into next weekend’s matchups against Princeton and Penn hoping to regain its swagger. Even after an impressive string of play, the Crimson only received a handful of votes in the ESPN/USA Today poll.

In other league tilts, Penn stunned Brown in Providence to earn its first conference win in dramatic fashion. After a desperate three from Zack Gordon was no good, the Quakers used a tip-in from Dan Monckton to take a 55-54 lead as the buzzer sounded. Brown’s head coach Jesse Agel stormed the court in protest, but to no avail. Penn’s win comes as ready relief to a squad reeling from a horrific start to the season. The Quakers, for years a perennial power in the Ivies and beyond, opened the campaign with ten straight losses and had only one win in their first fifteen outings. The Quakers decided they needed change at the top, handing Jerome Allen the reins as head coach after eight games. Allen has since guided Penn (2-15, 1-1 Ivy) to its only two wins of the year.
On Friday, however, Yale did not allow Penn the opportunity to muster the type of heroics that would follow the next night in Providence. Instead, the Bulldogs comfortably handled the Quakers at 61-48. Yale (8-12, 2-2 Ivy) finished off what was at halftime a close game with a strong second half. The next night it was Princeton (11-5, 2-0) who benefited from a late spurt, downing Yale 58-45 in a gritty affair in New Haven, Conn.

The Tigers have been hot of late, winning nine of their last 10 contests and putting themselves in a prime position to contend for the conference crown, should they steal a win or two from Cornell or Harvard. Over the last weekend, Princeton’s Douglas Davis and Ian Hummer swept the week’s conference awards, taking Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week honors, respectively. Douglas scored 16 points in his team’s emphatic 63-46 win over Brown on Friday, complementing a 13-point effort on Saturday against Yale. Hummer averaged nine points on the weekend as he helped the Tigers jump out to a great start in Ivy play with two league wins.

Coming out of the weekend, Dartmouth (4-12, 0-2 Ivy) finds itself in the Ivy cellar after losing to Columbia (7-11, 1-3 Ivy) in Levien Gymnasium on Saturday. Dartmouth was the victim of a brutal opening schedule that featured two straight games against Cornell and another against Harvard. The Lions are accompanied by Brown (7-14, 1-3 Ivy) in the middle of the pack. Both those teams sit just behind Penn, who are 1-1 in conference play after their improbable upset of the Bears. Yale trails Harvard toward the top, while Princeton is paired with Cornell as the leaders of the Ancient Eight.

Yet the story remains: Cornell breaking a 12-year dry spell for the Ivy League with its entry into the top 25. The national recognition will only heighten the competitive spirit around the league, the nation’s only conference without a season-ending tournament. And with Harvard’s already meager chances of earning a rare at-large bid out of the Ivy League seriously dented by its humbling loss in Ithaca, league competitors had better hope Cornell stumbles if they plan on dancing come March.