A Date in Cornell Basketball History: Boys to Men, A Glance Back at Preseason '06-'07

Pictured above, Cornell's freshmen class of the 2006-2007 season (with the '06-'07 media guide insert). The once baby-faced rookies are now Cornell's senior leaders of the '09-'10 season. Below, we go back in time yet again. Blue Ribbon Yearbook's preview of the Big Red heading into the 2006-2007 season.

Blue Ribbon Yearbook (2006-2007) Cornell

COACH AND PROGRAM

One man who averaged just more than a basket per game was responsible for Cornell's greatest victory of the 2005-06 season. No box score of the win exists, but everyone in Ithaca knows what happened.

Last Jan. 24, during a rebounding drill in practice, Big Red sophomore Khaliq Gant collided awkwardly with two other teammates and lay paralyzed on the Newman Arena floor.

Gant suffered a 50-percent dislocation of his C-4 and C-5 vertebrae. Bone from his hip was used to fuse together the two vertebrae. Initial diagnoses set the timetable for his ability to walk again anywhere from two months to never.

But after an extensive rehabilitation stint at Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, close to his Norcross, Ga., residence, Gant has resumed a normal collegian's life once thought forever out of his reach. He may never play basketball again, but he will make his own way to Newman to watch the Big Red try to better last year's third-place Ivy League finish.

"He's doing unbelievable," Cornell head coach Steve Donahue said last August. "He made a miraculous recovery, in all honesty. He's walking around campus now on his own. He's a resident assistant -- back to his old job. He's as much a part of this campus as a normal student would be."

No one, least of all Donahue, can say whether the Big Red's four-game winning streak after Grant was hurt was attributable to a fallen comrade. But Cornell's second straight 8-6 league mark was another wiggle of toes for a program that won only nine Ivy games total in Donahue's first three seasons in Ithaca.

Asked if Gant's injury impacted the Big Red either way, Donahue said, "At that time, it was hard to look at it in that way. But glancing back I was proud of everything our guys did from that moment on -- not just on the court but how they held up off the court and dealt with this tragedy that was around them."

PLAYERS

For the Big Red to cordon off another top-three space in the Ivy this year, successful rehabilitation will again be a huge factor. Not Gant's, as inspirational as that has been, but the bounce-back of veterans Graham Dow (4.8 ppg, 2.9 apg, 1.6 rpg) and Jason Hartford (7.7 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 55.5 FG).

Dow, a 6-0 senior point guard from Burlington, Ontario, Canada, has been sandbagged at the conclusion of each of the last two seasons with a sports hernia. He has started each year medically stable but begins deteriorating in December, to the point where he can't practice regularly.

This off-season, Dow finally relented to an operation performed by Dr. William Meyers, the same physician who fixed the same affliction for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. Presupposing a complete recovery, Dow is one of Cornell's best defenders and pilots the offense with precision.

"He was so effective for us at the point-guard spot," Donahue said. "He made us such a better team when he was healthy, and now the exciting thing is he's going to be healthy for all 28 games."

Hartford, a 6-9 senior and junior college transfer from Chemeteka Community College in Oregon, has had Code Red luck with the Big Red thus far. He suffered a broken wrist in the second game of last season against Syracuse, recovering in time to break the navicular bone in his foot late in the Ivy schedule. The foot didn't heal properly, so a pin was inserted on June 13.

Donahue predicts Hartford will be jogging by mid-October and, crossing fingers, competing by mid-November.

"He's a key part of our team," Donahue said. "He's a junior college guy that came in last year and helped us. He's extremely fit now. He's really worked on his body in the weight room, and I'm confident that we'll have something we haven't had -- two bigs in there with Andrew Naeve and him together."

Indeed, the Big Red's frontcourt is much more formidable if both Hartford and Naeve (6.9 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 1.4 bpg) are patrolling the paint. A 6-9 senior from Iowa, Naeve is the second-best rebounder and top shot blocker returning to the Ivy League.

Running shotgun to Dow in the backcourt is Ivy League Rookie of the Year and leading scorer Adam Gore (12.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg, .419 3PT), a 6-0 sophomore who sent an omen to the league with 22 points against Syracuse last November.

A tenacious three-point shooter who set a school record with 83 triples in 2005-06, Gore must broaden his horizons to advance the Big Red's cause.

"Obviously we were very pleased with what he did last year, but that's the easy part," Donahue said. "The hard part is, where do we go from here?

"He can continue to do things off the dribble ... to be a playmaker and not just a shot-maker. And I think he did that very well in the spring. He's a gym rat; his best quality is he's as tough a competitor as I've ever coached."

The obvious missing link to Cornell's starting five -- given Hartford's timely return -- is the vacancy left at the three spot by graduate Lenny Collins, the first Big Red player ever to record 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 200 assists.

A prime candidate is 6-7 sophomore Brian Kreefer (3.1 ppg, 1.5 rpg), who ripped Harvard for 14 points and nine rebounds in the next-to-last game of last season.

"He can come in and push for a starting spot even if Jason is healthy," Donahue said. "That's how good he played at the end of last year."

Two others who want a say in that are 6-4 sophomore Jason Battle (1.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg) and 6-5 senior Ugo Ihekweazu (2.7 ppg, 1.9 rpg). Both saw action in 20-plus games last season; Ihekweazu earned two starts.

Six-foot-eight senior Jason Mitchell (eight points in 12 appearances) and 6-5 sophomore Conor Mullen (six points in nine appearances) will try to exert influence in the frontcourt, although that will be difficult with the arrival of one of Donahue's best recruiting classes.

The six-man class of 2010 features 6-6 guard Ryan Wittman (20.3 ppg, .500 3PT at Eden Prairie High), a finalist for Minnesota's Mr. Basketball award and the son of former NBA guard Randy Wittman.

Another prolific scorer is 6-5 forward Geoff Reeves (23.6 ppg at Burlington High in Kansas), a first-team all-state pick by the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association. Either Wittman or Reeves has a shot at the small forward slot vacated by Collins.

Donahue also secured the services of 5-11 Louis Dale III (16.0 ppg, 8.0 apg, 7.0 rpg at Altamont High in Birmingham), an athletic backup to Dow at the point.

Three forwards -- 6-8 Pete Reynolds (17.2 ppg, 9.5 rpg at Blair High in Nebraska), 6-7 Jon Jaques (13.8 ppg, 7.3 rpg at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles) and 6-7 Alex Tyler (14.4 ppg, 10.0 rpg at Mercersburg Academy in Maryland) -- round out the class.

BLUE RIBBON ANALYSIS

BACKCOURT: B+
BENCH/DEPTH: B
FRONTCOURT: B-
INTANGIBLES: A-

With Collins, Dow and since-graduated forward Ryan Rourke footing the bill, the table was theoretically set for a Big Red One finish last season.

That didn't materialize, partly because of the injuries to Dow and Hartford and partly because Cornell suffered two baffling home-court losses -- 58-57 to Columbia and 69-64 to Brown.

If the Big Red finds a jack-of-all-trades like Collins among its freshman class, those hideous losses won't occur in 2006-07. A Dow that isn't saying "Ow!" is worth a lot, and Naeve and Hartford in the paint opens up shots for Gore the sniper. The question is whether Kreefer, Battle and/or Iwekheazu are ready for prime time.

Suffice it to say that the reconstruction of Cornell basketball has reached the stage where 8-6 won't cut it anymore. Nudging the Ps -- Penn and Princeton -- from the Ivy perch is the only progress that counts now, a far cry from the standards Donahue set in Ithaca six seasons ago.

"We came in second two years ago. We came in third last year. We've put some steady runs together," Donahue said. "Like everyone else, our goal is to win the championship.

"I think we've changed the culture of Cornell basketball. Now we've got to take another step. Can we do it? I don't know. We're going to try everything we can to make it happen."