Cornell Basketball in the News

Some references to Cornell Basketball in the news media today...

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Invitations are at the printer

The race to determine the 65-team NCAA Tournament field got under way Tuesday with games in the Ohio Valley Conference, Big South Conference and Horizon League tournaments. By Saturday, the first three berths will be determined, and it will be four if Cornell wins its games on Friday and Saturday to win the Ivy League, the only one of the 31 Division I conferences without a conference tournament.

From the Card Chronicle:

Championship Week Primer

20 PLAYERS NOT NAMED STEPHEN CURRY WHO WILL BE HEARD FROM

Ryan Wittman (Cornell/Ivy)

There's no tournament, but defending champion Cornell currently holds a game and-a-half lead over Princeton in the race for the Ivy League crown. The two will meet in the regular season finale on Saturday. The Big Red are again led by sharp-shooting Ryan Wittman (18.5 ppg), the son of ex-NBA player and coach Randy Wittman.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Pitt is tied with Cornell and Dayton for the third-longest home-winning streak in NCAA Division I with 19 wins in a row at the Petersen Events Center. Kansas owns the nation's longest home-winning streak with 40.

From Storming the Floor-- "When the Hell will the Ivy be Settled?" (click here).

The Cornell Basketball Blog runs down the exhausting number of possibilities.

Also, where there is no reference to Cornell, the San Diego Union Tribune did a nice story on Penn forward Tyler Bernardini. The article notes that Penn is 21-33 since Bernardini joined the program.

“The Drexel fans are the absolute worst to me,” he said.

And devoted to their craft.

When Drexel partisans found out about Bernardini's side job – washing uniforms as part of Penn's work-aid program – they didn't miss their chance to give the Quakers' star a hard time.

“They had a sign that said, 'Bernardini, you can do our laundry any day,' ” he said. “I thought it was funny, and I couldn't believe they got that information.”

If he takes it all in stride – the success, the heckling – it's because this is what took him across the country. The chance to lead a team, to be a sophomore leader, convinced him to brave East Coast winters and become a Quaker.

“I really didn't want to go to Penn at first,” he said, “but I realized how much Penn really wanted me. I felt like (other schools) wanted me to be just another piece in the puzzle, but at Penn I could come in and play right away.”

Finally, there is an Associated Press story on former Cornell basketball player, Will Scott who transferred to Louisville 4 years ago. See Louisville's Will Scott closing in on MBA, not NBA.