After back-to-back Ivy Championships, a five-point loss to Kansas and a trouncing of their only perceived League threat, the Cornell men’s basketball team has finally received national acclaim.
A week after dominating Dartmouth and Harvard by over 30 points each, the Big Red (18-3, 4-0 Ivy) climbed into the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ poll at No. 25. Cornell received 53 votes, edging out Mississippi by a single vote.
The players, however, are downplaying the significance of the long-awaited ranking.
“It’s nice to be recognized, but at the same time it doesn’t move us any closer to our goal of winning the Ivy League championship,” senior forward Ryan Wittman told the Cornell Daily Sun. “If anything, it makes it tougher.”
This is Cornell’s first appearance in a national poll since the 1950-51 season, when a nine-game winning streak to open the season earned a No. 14 ranking by the Associated Press. A 40-point loss to Columbia the next week dropped the Big Red out of the top 25.
The last Ancient Eight team to crack the top 25 was Princeton, which ended the 1997-98 season ranked No. 8 in the AP poll. The Tigers entered the NCAA tournament as a No. 5 seed and were eliminated in the second round.
Roaring Defense Cornell isn’t the only Ivy team making national news. Fresh off its first Yale-Brown sweep since 2004, Princeton has emerged from its first Ivy games as the nation’s top scoring defense.
The Tigers allowed just 91 points this weekend — 46 to Brown and 45 to Yale — lowering their points-against average to 53.9.
“We understand that defense is probably the more important side of the ball compared to offense,” senior guard Marcus Schroeder told GoPrincetonTigers.com. “We know that sometimes our shots aren’t going to go in, but we always have our defense to rely on.”
That stifling defense has proven essential to the Tigers’ success this season.
Though Princeton averages barely 60 points per game, it has achieved an 11-5 record.
Big Green feeling blue With the first weekend of full Ivy competition in the books, Dartmouth is the only team without a conference victory.
After previously falling twice to Harvard — including a narrow 62-58 loss Jan. 23 — the Big Green once again came up empty at Cornell and Columbia this weekend.
Shooting seemed to be the biggest failure for Dartmouth (4-14, 0-4) in New York. The team shot a season-low 27.6 percent against the Big Red and 36.5 percent against the Lions.
Despite its offensive struggles, Dartmouth still managed to stay competitive against Columbia (7-11, 1-3).
The Big Green closed the deficit to five points with just over a minute left in the game, but four free throws from Lions freshman Brian Barbour and sophomore Noruwa Agho iced the game. Agho finished with a game-high 25 points.
Dartmouth will have another chance at an Ivy win this weekend when it takes on Penn and Princeton at home.
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