Cornell Point Guard Prospect Denied Admission to Cornell

I give the details in my basketball blog, but long story made short, Coach Donahue offered Texan Braxton Adamson a spot on the team. Adamson applied to Cornell, visited Ithaca during spring break, was ready to commit, but was denied admission to the Ag School business program.

This is a kid who had a pair of D-I scholarship offers and has another half dozen schools interested. He would have been a nice back-up for Louis Dale.

Sure is tough to recruit in the Ivy League!

Kids need to be academically and physically qualified, not to mention, willing to spend $40,000 per year rather than take a scholarship elsewhere.

I'm sorry he didn't have the background to be admitted, but delighted that Cornell is willing to stick to its admissions standards even with highly-sought-after recruits. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Would it be wrong of me to wonder if he ends up at Penn or Princeton?

Good question. I can confirm that Adamson was interested in both Penn and Princeton and I know he applied to Penn. Although I am not sure of the outcome.

What I can say is that Penn has already signed a point guard-- Harrison Gaines-- a flashy kid from California (will remind fans of Jason Forte from Brown) and the Quakers recruiting class appears completed.

Princeton is in a weird situation. They lost their coach. In addition, Jeff Peterson, a point guard recruit from DeMatha HS in Hyattsville, Md, de-committed from PU and was ready to verbal to Iowa just before Alford resigned. So... not sure what Princeton is going to do. They have no point guard recruit and they also don't have a coach.

Bottomline... Cornell is running out of time to bring in more recruits and it would be nice to see us get a kid who had scholarship options at the D-I level, but instead chose to play in the Ivy. Adamson was the type of kid we wanted. Too bad his "numbers" fell short. I am sure Coach Donahue thought he had a shot at admission.

Al DeFlorio
I'm sorry he didn't have the background to be admitted, but delighted that Cornell is willing to stick to its admissions standards even with highly-sought-after recruits. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Yea, I'm with you. This makes me a little proud.

CornellFan
was denied admission to the Ag School business program

He should reapply to Hotel...

More expensive. Coach D likes to push his kids towards the statutory colleges.

Al DeFlorio
I'm sorry he didn't have the background to be admitted, but delighted that Cornell is willing to stick to its admissions standards even with highly-sought-after recruits. I wouldn't want it any other way.

It happens all the time. Last year, there were three recruited football players applying in our local CAAAN committee area. Only one was accepted (by Hum. Ec.), and unfortunately it was one who publicly announced in February that he was going to Yale.

CornellFan
More expensive. Coach D likes to push his kids towards the statutory colleges.

Coach D better do his homework then. Annual tuition for hotel: $32,981. Annual tuition for statutory colleges for a non-New York resident: $31,881. Big deal. Last I knew Texas was not part of New York.

Isn't Robinson in the mix at PG? It would seem 2008's class might be in greater need of a PG, no?

Collin is a combo guard at best, if not more of a shooting guard. When he does play point, he is more of a "score first, pass second" point guard. In fact, this is the primary reason why he left USC-- too small (6'0" to play shooting guard in the Pac 10 and not much of a pure point guard. I am sure if Cornell is in a tough situation, we could use either Robinson or Gore to bring the ball up the court when Dale sits for rests (or in foul trouble situations). However, I think Donahue would like to bring in a pure passing point guard.

My hunch is that we see Robinson start with Dale. I think we see Gore as a very dangerous 6th man. Robinson and Dale should be the quickest backcourt in recent Ivy memory. Not only can these two score off the dribble and slash to the basket, they can both shoot the ball from deep.

Interesting to see a DeMatha kid at an Ivy (even if it was only on paper). DeMatha is one of those sports factory high schools that could probably beat some D-2 teams.