Cornell Basketball 2025-26 Thread

[upprdeck]

They lose the big 3 guards.  They sure lacked a big to help them out this year.

[scoop85]

It's really heartbreaking to follow this team anywhere they go for Ivy madness and lose to Yale in a game that's never close every single year. We made the tournament 5 years in a row and only made the final once, never won, that just can't happen.

With all the seniors leaving it's hard not to feel like our window has closed, and our chance was in the last five years. I have no hope for the team in the near future, because there's just no talent. Really really upsetting loss for me.

Watching Penn-Yale, with Penn up 4 late in the 1st half. T.J. Power — the former blue chip Duke recruit who 1st transferred to UVA then this year to Penn - is dominating the game with 23 of Penn's 34 points. He's the type of big-time transfer we need to bring in if we want to stay near the top of the league.

[Ken711]

It's really heartbreaking to follow this team anywhere they go for Ivy madness and lose to Yale in a game that's never close every single year. We made the tournament 5 years in a row and only made the final once, never won, that just can't happen.

With all the seniors leaving it's hard not to feel like our window has closed, and our chance was in the last five years. I have no hope for the team in the near future, because there's just no talent. Really really upsetting loss for me.

Watching Penn-Yale, with Penn up 4 late in the 1st half. T.J. Power — the former blue chip Duke recruit who 1st transferred to UVA then this year to Penn - is dominating the game with 23 of Penn's 34 points. He's the type of big-time transfer we need to bring in if we want to stay near the top of the league.

He's the difference maker.  Cornell is starting to bring in good transfer recruits in football under Swanstrom, they need to do the same thing in the basketball program.

[Mr. Niss]

I see Noard had a subpar game. With the height deficit-if he is not hitting-Cornell's hurtin'.  Defi itely agree with prior poster next year will be a challenge.  Jaques definitely needs to the portal or bring in a JUCO transfer or 2. Also in reference to BearLover-the reason that Cornell went to the current offensive philosophy which started under Earl-he knew he could not outrecruit HYP and the offense was a way to counter the talent advantage.

I legitimately believe(d) that Brian Earl should have been considered for Coach of the Year for what he did with a team that could not out-recruit others in the Ivies, let alone any other competitive conference.

[George64]

It's not often that I feel for another Ivy, but I think Yale got screwed by the NCAA.  Penn won the Ivy tournament in overtime and got the automatic bid, but Yale, at 24-6 overall (Penn was 18 and 11) and first in the Ivy regular season, should have gotten an at-large bid.  Meanwhile, Lehigh at 18 and 16 snuck in.  If there's a saving grace, it's that Yale, rather than Harvard, will go to the NIT.

[ugarte]

It's not often that I feel for another Ivy, but I think Yale got screwed by the NCAA.  Penn won the Ivy tournament in overtime and got the automatic bid, but Yale, at 24-6 overall (Penn was 18 and 11) and first in the Ivy regular season, should have gotten an at-large bid.  Meanwhile, Lehigh at 18 and 16 snuck in.  If there's a saving grace, it's that Yale, rather than Harvard, will go to the NIT.

There are over 30 teams above Yale in the KenPom who were passed over for at-large bids. I think the only team below Yale is 31-1 Miami (OH), which I think is understandable (especially in light of Miami's documented attempts to build a more competitive schedule).

Lehigh won their conference tournament. Yale didn't! Lehigh isn't even the worst autobid (shout out to Prarie View) and it isn't comparable.

I hope Yale does well in the NIT though; it's fun when Ivies succeed in hoops in the postseason in a way that I hate it in hockey imo.

[George64]

According to ChatGPT*, although not an official metric, the NCAA selection committee only references KenPom when evaluating teams for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Although I'm far from a basketball maven, I think the Ivy League deserved two teams in the tournament.  There's still something to be said for human judgement.

*Yes I know, ChatGPT isn't perfect.  See my earlier post - Why I'll never get in a self-driving car!

[chimpfood]

Ivy was never close to a 2 bid league this year.

[ugarte]

According to ChatGPT*, although not an official metric, the NCAA selection committee only references KenPom when evaluating teams for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Although I'm far from a basketball maven, I think the Ivy League deserved two teams in the tournament.  There's still something to be said for human judgement.

I didn't mean to suggest that KenPom is the be all and end all of CBB evaluation on edge cases but it's a pretty good barometer for "not even close". Miami (OH) had terrible peripherals but had a perfect regular season and there's no way to freeze out Miami without it being an instruction to the big conferences and other teams competing for at-large bids to avoid ever scheduling interesting mid-major teams because you can control their fate by exclusion. (That Miami schedule is gross, though they surely didn't expect all of those OOC games to be quite as bad as they turned out to be. At least they beat Akron twice and Horizon champ Wright State.)

Yale had five losses to teams ranked below 125 (URI (135), Penn (150), Harvard (152), Cornell (164) and Princeton (252!)). If not for the Big Red honking one vs Dartmouth before we righted the ship, Yale would have had a worse worst-loss than us. Sorry, George. Wanting a two-bid Ivy this year was sentimental. 2024 was a much closer case when Yale won the ILT and left Princeton on the outside - and even Princeton would have been a dubious at-large.