Cornell Basketball in the News

Below some references to Cornell Basketball in the news media today:

From The Dartmouth:

...The two wins this weekend put the Big Green at 6-4 in the Ivy League, two games behind league-leading Cornell.

Under most scenarios, Dartmouth must win all of its remaing games thsi season. The Big Green will face Cornell and Columbia this weekend, followed by Yale and Brown the final weekend of the season.

“I think that a sense of urgency has been adopted by the team,” Pride said. “We all understand what is riding on these games. If we lose, it’s over. Our backs are against the wall, and we know it.”

Dartmouth’s title hopes will also depend on strong efforts from Penn and Princeton in their remaining matches against Cornell. The Big Red holds a two-game lead over Dartmouth in the Ivy League standings, and must lose two of its remaining four games to create an opening for Dartmouth to take a share of the League crown.

The Big Green returns to Dartmouth this Friday and Saturday to play Cornell and Columbia at Leede Arena. Both games tip off at 7 p.m.

From the Examiner.com:

Right now, the Cornell Big Red led the Ivy League with a conference record of 8-2 and they control their own destiny. But Penn gets a chance to ruin Cornell’s NCAA Tournament plans when they travel north to battle the Big Red on March 6^th. Coming up this week, the Quakers host a solid Yale team on Friday that is 6-4 in Ivy League play and then they take on last-place Brown on Saturday. Two wins this weekend could potentially get Penn back in the hunt. But a loss to Yale on Friday would pretty much end all hope of making the NCAA Tournament for the Quakers.

It’s been a tough season for coach Glen Miller’s squad, but Penn has a chance to play the role of spoiler in the next two weeks.

From the Daily Pennsylvanian:

Cornell giant Jeff Foote is pacing the Ancient Eight with 58 blocks. Being 7-feet tall comes in handy.

Appearances deceiving. This year's Ivy League is not as bad as it looks.

No squad has been consistent; even Cornell, the undisputed hegemon, has fallen to inferior Yale and Princeton in recent weeks. The Big Red are likely still headed for the Big Dance, but only because nobody else has been able to establish itself and give the Ithacans a run for their money.

Ken Pomeroy, though, presents a somewhat less-bleak portrait. In Pomeroy rankings from 2000-01 through last year, the median ranking of the Ancient Eight champion was 105, the mean 100.97; Cornell currently sits at No. 99.

And while the conference is tied for fifth worst in all of Division I, that's hardly a new phenomenon. It was true last season and even worse in 2006, when the Ivies could only look down upon three of its brethren.

Also from the Daily Pennsylvanian:

Senior leadership. Or the lack thereof. That's what all of the Penn men's basketball team's problems have boiled down to. At least that's the line coach Glen Miller continues to offer as an excuse after the Quakers dropped two games to Dartmouth and Harvard at the Palestra this weekend.

Will the line always be that if there are no upper-class leaders the team won't be "good" in a particular year? Do we automatically have to look towards next season then?

It seems to be a changing philosophy of the Penn program led by Miller, one that's shifting towards putting too much weight on a single factor.

"That's why teams win," Miller said after Saturday's 66-60 loss to Harvard. "They win because they have a couple of guys like that that are solid as a rock and we're not there yet. I'm just telling you the reality of the matter."

Sure, a dominating senior would be good for the team. I'll admit that I've fallen into the trap before this season of pointing solely to Penn's lack of an experienced playmaker, but really, we have to move beyond that now.

The coaches can't just put up their hands in frustration ("I don't know what else you can do as a coach and I think quite frankly, I don't know what else you can do as a player," Miller said after his team had a number of good looks that wouldn't fall this weekend).

There are other ways to win.

Look at Cornell. When the Big Red won the Ancient Eight title last year, Louis Dale and Ryan Wittman were both sophomores and key contributors. Then-junior Jeff Foote stepped in without playing competitively for over two years.