The Big Red was a unanimous selection to repeat as champion when the 2009-10 Ivy League Preseason Media Poll was released Wednesday by the league office.
Princeton was picked to finish second, followed by Penn, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown and Dartmouth. Cornell returns all five starters and a deep group of reserves from last year's 21-10 team, while adding two potentially helpful transfers in guard Max Groebe and forward Mark Coury.
"(Cornell has) gotten a lot of hype, but they've gotten that hype through their play, not through their talk," Miller said during Wednesday's teleconference call with the league's eight head coaches. "It's going to take multiple teams to beat Cornell. ... Cornell is a favorite and rightfully so. I just think for someone else to win the league, which is definitely possible, we're going to have to have multiple teams that can beat them."
Cornell opens the 2009-10 season on Nov. 14 at Alabama. The Big Red's home opener is Nov. 20 against Seton Hall. Last year, the Big Red finished league play with an 11-3 record, with road losses to Princeton, Harvard and Yale. In 2007-08, Cornell went 14-0 in Ivy League play.
Cornell coach Steve Donahue said his team had a terrific offseason, and the personnel makes life easier on the coaching staff because they're a low-maintenance group.
"Not a lot of drama on this team," he said. "They come in and practice hard. They love playing basketball, and they love playing basketball with each other more than they love playing college basketball."
Dartmouth's women's team received 11 of 16 first-place votes and was picked to repeat as Ivy champion. Harvard, which received five first-place votes, was tabbed to finish second, followed by Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Penn and Brown.
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