Cornell Continues Ivy Domination

Still undefeated in Ivy play, Cornell continued its red-hot campaign last weekend with victories over Yale and Brown to begin a four-game home stand. The Big Red bested the Bulldogs by 20 points and beat the second-place Bears by 11. Not only does Cornell sit atop the Ivy League at 10-0, but eight of its ten wins have been by double figures.

Junior guard Adam Gore led the Big Red with 18 points in both of his team’s match-ups. His average of 9.8 points per game makes him the team’s third-leading scorer while sophomore guard/forward Ryan Wittman leads Cornell with 15.5 points per game.

Trailing Cornell by a good margin is Brown, which sits at 7-3 in the Ancient Eight. On Friday, the Bears overcame a four-point halftime deficit to beat Columbia by 15 points. Senior guard Mark McAndrew led his team with 18 points and was the second-highest scorer overall. He scored the 1,000th point of his collegiate career on a shot from behind the arc with 4:15 to play in the first period.

McAndrew scored 18 points against Cornell as well, but Brown could not give the Big Red its first conference defeat. Senior guard Damon Huffman contributed a game-high 19 points in the Bears’ losing effort. The score was tied with 6:37 to play, but Brown eventually lost by 11 points.

Columbia failed in its quest to take over second place when it lost to Brown, but a win against Yale left the team at 6-4 and third in the Ivy standings. Senior forward John Baumann, the Lions’ leading scorer with 15.8 points per game, was quiet on offense on the first night of the Light Blue’s 1-1 weekend while sophomore guard Niko Scott led all scorers with 24 points against Brown.

The Lions rebounded from their loss to the Bears with a six-point victory over Yale. Baumann, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week, bounced back from his nine-point outing against Brown to score a game-high 25 points. Freshman forward Asenso Ampim had a career-high 16 points in 26 minutes. As a result, he garnered Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors for the first time.

Penn rounds out the top half of the league, having amassed a 5-4 record during conference play. The Quakers started their weekend with a 26-point victory at Dartmouth. Four players scored in double figures for Penn, with senior forward Brian Grandieri leading both teams with 15 points.

Penn could not continue its winning ways in Cambridge on Saturday when they fell to Harvard. Grandieri’s 19 points were not enough for a victory, as three members of the Crimson scored at least 20 points. Freshman Harrison Gaines added 16 points for the Quakers.