OT: Cornell basketball season ends tonight

[CornellChris]

Sorry for the non-hockey post, but tonight our basketball team finishes its season with a game against Brown. It's been a very good year for the Big Red IMO. Right now they're tied with Harvard and Dartmouth for second place in the Ivy League (Yale is a half game behind). Tonight's games:

Cornell at Brown (Go Big Red obviously!)
Harvard at Penn (Go Penn!)
Dartmouth at Princeton (Go Princeton!)
Columbia at Yale (Go Columbia!)

If Cornell, Penn, & Princeton all win tonight, and Yale loses either tonight or on Tuesday against Brown, Cornell will finish in sole possession of second in the Ivy League (Penn is the champion and will be representing the Ivy League in the NCAA tournament). I think sole possession of second would be a great achievement for our team! GO BIG RED!

-Chris '03

[Trotsky]

Cornell finished the season with a 77-61 rout of Brown.  It was a much more successful season than predicted, however -- I think most of the mags had us at 6th or 7th.

Tonight:

Cornell beat Brown
Penn beats Harvard
Yale beat Columbia
Princeton beats Dartmouth

[CornellChris]

With the exception of Columbia losing to Yale, all the games last night went exactly as we hoped. Though our season is over, Yale still has one more game, thus one more chance to lose and finish behind us in the standings. They're playing at Brown, against a Brown team that beat them earlier in the year, so there is cause for optimism. We're assured of a better Ivy record than five of the other seven Ivy teams, though, which is very impressive to me at least. With a Yale loss, we would finish with a better record than all, save Penn.

Much like our football team, I couldn't be happier with our basketball team and the direction in which Donahue has taken the program. Look at the last four seasons: 5 wins, to 9 wins, to 11 wins, to 13 wins. Consistent improvement with each season. It's conceivable that within a couple seasons Cornell could finally break the strangehold that Penn & Princeton have held on the Ivy League title for the last couple decades. Weird to think that Cornell's current freshman were still almost babies the last time we appeared in the NCAA tournament (wasn't it the late eighties?).

Imagine a season in which both our hockey and basketball teams appeared in the NCAA tournament. Not such a longshot fantasy anymore. As I said, our football program also looks to be in great hands with the new coach. I never expected anything like the dramatic improvement they showed this season (after an 0-for-the-Ivy season the year before). It goes without saying that the lacrosse team (Ivy League Co-Champions last year) is doing very well. It's certainly an exciting time to be a Big Red sports fan!

-Chris '03

[peterg]

Don't forget wrestling.  Second in the EIWA's to Lehigh by only 2.5 points, with nine wrestlers qualifying for nationals.

[Chris 02]

Or track.  Men's and Women's teams have been racking up the Heps championships for the past couple years now.  

[David Harding]

[Q]peterg Wrote:

 Don't forget wrestling.  Second in the EIWA's to Lehigh by only 2.5 points, with nine wrestlers qualifying for nationals.[/q]

Or women's polo with five straight national championships!!!

[CornellChris]

I was bored today, so I decided to take 5 minutes and look at Cornell's finishes in three of the "big" college sports (hockey, football, basketball). I was going to add baseball & lacrosse, but... didn't. I don't know why.

FOOTBALL: Sole possession of 3rd place in the Ivy League. Again, I can't say enough about the job Knowles did with this team. From winless in the league to better than 5 of the other teams. Wow.

BASKETBALL: Still somewhat up in the air. Best case, we're in sole possession of 2nd place. Worst case, we share 2nd place with Yale.

HOCKEY: We're #1! Ivy League Champs!

OK, so our average finish is 2nd place. Harvard & Penn were the only schools that were as competitive as us across the board. Harvard finished 2nd to us in hockey, they won the Ivy in football, and will either finish 3rd or 4th in basketball, depending on the outcome of the aforementioned Yale game. So best case scenario for Harvard is an average finish of 2nd as well.

Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.

I just thought it was interesting to see that the schools that are good in one sport, tend to be good across the board. Hmmm.... That's really not that interesting (or much of a revelation since most would assume that anyway). I'm not quite sure why I wasted 5 minutes on that. Oh well.

-Chris '03

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]CornellChris Wrote:
Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.[/q]

I think we have to consider Penn and Columbia as tied for 7th place in hockey.

[CornellChris]

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

 [Q2]CornellChris Wrote:
Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.[/Q]
I think we have to consider Penn and Columbia as tied for 7th place in hockey.[/q]

I like the way you think! Since Harvard's best possible finish in basketball would be a tie for 3rd (and all our finishes would then be untied, since it would mean a Yale loss on Tuesday), I'm (un)officially declaring us Kings of the Ivy League! Of course, we could also add in lacrosse and our co-championship would give us the edge. Somebody write a press release. The world must know of our greatness.

-Chris

[KeithK]

[q]Of course, we could also add in lacrosse and our co-championship would give us the edge. Somebody write a press release.[/q]We've already won the Ivies in lax this year?  Wow - that's a pretty impressive accomplishment... :-P

[CornellChris]

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

 [Q2]Of course, we could also add in lacrosse and our co-championship would give us the edge. Somebody write a press release.[/Q]
We've already won the Ivies in lax this year?  Wow - that's a pretty impressive accomplishment...  [/q]

LOL. No, just taking our finishes in the last completed season of each sport. Last year, as I'm sure you know, we shared the Ivy title with Princeton. No "assuming" here. I'd never want to jinx the Lax team.

-Chris '03

[CornellChris]

Though Cornell's season is done, tonight is the official end of the Ivy League season. Penn, of course, still has basketball to play in the NCAA tournament. For the rest of us, though, this is the last chance to enjoy Ivy hoops.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the game of interest to Cornell fans is Yale at Brown. A Yale win and we are forced to share 2nd place with the Bulldogs. A Brown win and we have 2nd place all to ourselves. Yale really wants that share of 2nd place. From their official athletics website:

2nd Place At Stake In Season Finale
Bulldogs Travel To Brown

March 7, 2005

at BROWN
Tue., Mar. 8, 2005 - 7 p.m.
Pizzitola Sports Center
Providence, R.I.
Radio - WYBC (1340 AM)

YALE TALE

The 110th season of Yale Basketball comes to an end with a trip to Providence. A victory would give the Bulldogs a share of second place in the Ivy League with Cornell. Yale has already secured its fifth straight season with a .500 or better record in Ivy League play. The last time the Bulldogs had five consecutive Ivy seasons at .500 or better was from 1960-61 to 1964-65.

Call me selfish, but I don't like to share. Obviously, I wish we were headed to the big dance, but I'll take 2nd place and bragging rights over every Ivy school except Penn.

No idea if this will have audio on the internet. I don't think Yale is doing it, and Brown's feed is (I believe) part of a subscription plan. This link might work:
http://www.onworldwide.com/Brown.html
I got it from the "Free Net Audio" page via our very own ELynah, so it could be hockey only broadcasts. Worth a try. If not, there's always ESPN.com or game tracker.

Just something of interest for Cornell fans while we wait for the ECAC quarterfinal series against Clarkson to start... If nobody's interested, I apologize for the (continued) off-topic posts. Ivy basketball season's over tonight, so after this you only need to worry about me posting off-topic lacrosse posts.

-Chris '03

[CornellChris]

Yale up 37-35 at the half. C'mon Brown!

-Chris '03

[CornellChris]

Brown wins 75-65! Ivy League season over. We finish in sole possession of 2nd place. Good luck to Penn in the NCAA tournament. Have a nice offseason fellow Big Red basketball fans. Now back to our regularly scheduled hockey discussions...

-Chris '03