By Jon Jaques
New York Times
November 16, 2009
Jon Jaques is a senior on the Cornell basketball team. As he did last season, Jon will be blogging for The Quad throughout this season.
There’s a chance that last year’s version of Cornell basketball would have lost our game to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday afternoon. In road contests at Minnesota and Syracuse last season, we held double-digit leads at halftime, only to relax and let very talented squads come back and beat us in heartbreaking fashion.
Not this year. After extending a 6-point halftime lead to 15 points just minutes into the second half, and weathering multiple Tide rallies, we finally claimed that elusive signature victory over a big-name opponent, defeating Alabama, 71-67.
It is without a doubt the biggest nonconference win Cornell has had since my class arrived on campus, but although a road win against an SEC opponent is great, probably the most important outcome from Saturday’s game was that after so many near-wins, we proved to ourselves that we could close out a tight game against an extremely tough opponent.
There was no great celebration after the game. We were happy, sure, but with what we have coming up on our schedule (at UMass on Wednesday, Seton Hall on Friday, at Syracuse next week), we’re not satisfied.
As for the game atmosphere, I was little disappointed with the turnout by the Alabama fans, especially for a season opener. There weren’t many of them (they most likely all left town to make the trek to Starkville, Miss., for the ‘Bama football game). The only time they seemed truly excited was when the loudspeakers blared Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Don’t get me wrong, great song. But when I can’t count the number of times a song has been played on one hand, it loses its appeal. Another highlight was a halftime show with a unicyclist that delayed our warm-up by about two minutes.
After the game, we experienced real Southern hospitality when Dr. Malcolm Portera, the chancellor of the University of Alabama system, graciously hosted us for a barbeque-style dinner. The meal was unreal. How does this sound? Spinach and artichoke dip with chips for an appetizer; main course of BBQ pulled pork, hot wings, fried chicken wings, cheddar biscuits and coleslaw; and chocolate pie for dessert. Oh yeah, and Southern sweet tea.
The dinner was planned with the help of Dr. Louis Dale Sr., the vice president for equity and diversity at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who is a good friend of the chancellor’s and the grandfather of the Cornell senior and Birmingham native Louis Dale.
After sleeping off that meal and flying home early Sunday morning, we have a couple of days of practice to prepare for our next challenge. The road doesn’t get any easier. Next up: the UMass Minutemen.
No comments:
Post a Comment