Ivy League Basketball News

Southern Pines Pilot — Wire familiar with NCAA tourney

When Adam Wire was introduced to Cornell assistant basketball coach Nat Graham after a Pinecrest game in 2007, he had no idea of the journey that meeting would set in motion.

“I remember back then it was pretty cool to have a Division I coach come and watch me play,” the Big Red junior said by phone earlier this week. “Coming into Cornell, it would have been great just to see us on the board on selection Sunday. The first year we were excited to be there. I never would have dreamed we would be in the Sweet 16.”

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GoCrimson.com — Tommy Amaker, Harvard working on multiyear extension

Tommy Amaker and Harvard University are working on a multi-year extension of his appointment as head basketball coach for the Crimson.

“There have been some flattering reports of opportunities at other fine institutions but my heart is at Harvard,” said Amaker, speaking via phone from the Final Four in Indianapolis.

In three years, Amaker has guided Harvard to record-setting numbers in virtually every category including victories (21) as well as the program’s first postseason bid since 1946 with a berth to the CIT field. For his effort, Amaker was named a finalist for the Ben Jobe Award, presented annually to the top minority coach in Division I college basketball.

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Valley News — Dartmouth should not be afraid to win (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)

March Madness has been New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July all rolled into one for the Cornell men’s basketball team — fireworks and celebrations.

On television and in major publications, the Ivy League basketball champion became the talk of the basketball nation by winning two NCAA Tournament games and making a respectable showing against No. 1- seeded Kentucky.

Why couldn’t this be Dartmouth?

That was the question I recently put to Big Green coaches and alums, Ivy athletic officials, collegiate administrators and former players. Although none would speak for the record, the answer became abundantly clear: Winning simply is not a priority at Dartmouth.

“They are afraid to succeed there, and it shows,” one Ivy athletic official told me.

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FoxSports.com — Sources: Spiders extend Mooney

Richmond coach Chris Mooney is now officially out of the running for the Boston College job.

The other candidates to replace Al Skinner are former BC assistants Ed Cooley (Fairfield), who already interviewed, Bill Coen (Northeastern) and Cornell coach Steve Donahue.

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In Cornell-Kentucky, shades of Bucknell-Kansas

It was Cornell’s near win against Kansas early in the season that made me, like a lot of other people, pencil the Big Red in for a victory in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament. The players just looked good, giving an undefeated Jayhawks team all it could handle.

In that game, Cornell reminded me of another team that had given Kansas fits years earlier: the 2004-5 Bucknell team that beat the Jayhawks in the tournament.

In many ways that Bucknell team provided the blueprint for an Ivy or Patriot League team to go on a streak in March. It shocked Kansas with a combination of sharp outside shooting, a big-time big man, and plucky, athletic ball-handlers and defenders. That Bison team and this Cornell team have a lot in common, and I’m not just referring to the fact that both squads lost to my Penn Quakers in the regular season.

… Three factors — a dead-eye shooter, a big man that can clean the glass and a steady, athletic ball-handler – made Bucknell a giant killer, and the formula has led Cornell farther than any Ivy team since Penn made a trip to the Final Four in 1979. Beating Kentucky is a tall order for any team, but this Cornell team could use the Bucknell blueprint to do just that.

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Cornell counts on closeness against Kentucky

In their rickety three-story dwelling, where 14 members of the Cornell basketball team and a team manager live near campus, teamwork involves cleaning with a shovel, scooping up the empty Mountain Dew cans and Subway wrappers as if they were another snowdrift.

The junior Adam Wire and the senior Pete Reynolds played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on a projection television in Reynolds’s room. Wire is considered the messiest of the 15 house members because he eats the most and cleans the least. He lives on the second floor, where the bathroom has rotted to a point where few use it.

“The second floor in general is disgusting,” said Dana Costello, a sophomore cheerleader who is Reynolds’s girlfriend.

Wire shrugged. “It’s our own dirt,” he said, rationalizing why he is one of the few who still uses the shower.

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At the Top of his Cornell Class

The storyline has been worn to threads: Cornell, the Ivy League champ and round of 16 surprise, has some smart kids on its roster.

In trying to pick the brainiest of the bunch, though, there was an almost unanimous nod from the team toward the skinny 6-foot-8 freshman Eitan Chemerinski, the one they call the “most interesting” player on the roster.

It may sound surprising, but not everybody on Cornell’s roster can tout fluency in three languages, a route toward a degree in Applied Economics and Management, and an ability to solve a Rubik’s Cube in two minutes.

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Cornell and Kentucky have something in common

From budgets to tradition to fan base, it has been made very clear this week that Kentucky and Cornell do not have a whole lot in common.

What they do have is a common opponent. Cornell started its charmed season with a win at Alabama on Nov. 14, 71-67. The Crimson Tide also lost to Kentucky, 66-55 in Lexington and 73-67 in the Southeastern Conference tournament.

Alabama Coach Anthony Grant said he thought Thursday night’s matchup between the Big Red and the Wildcats would be a “great” game.

“I think you’re talking about two distinct styles of play,” Grant said. “With Kentucky, it’s the size and physicality and the speed and talent of John Wall and Eric Bledsoe on the perimeter. The size and physicality of Kentucky will pose a problem for everyone.”

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New York Post — Former player is living proof: Cornell can beat Kentucky

Former Big Red guard Gregg Morris. Caitlin Thorne Hersey / NYP

His name is Gregg Morris, and he is living proof that a Cornell basketball team can beat a Kentucky basketball team.

He is 63 years old now, an assistant professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, a former cityside reporter for the New York Post before that. And long before that, he was a guard who scored 37 points one magical night against Adolph Rupp’s Runts (Pat Riley and Louie Dampier among them) before a shellshocked crowd at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Ky.

The date was Dec. 28, 1966. The score was Cornell 92, Kentucky 77.

“We were 22-point underdogs,” Morris said. “Even the campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, made us 25-point underdogs and they wished us good luck.

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Fayetteville Observer — Pinecrest Grad Wire Enjoying Ride with Cornell

“This is ridiculous,” [Adam] Wire said Sunday in a delirious Cornell locker room. “It’s hard to even comprehend what we’re doing right now. But we’re having a great time doing it. And for me, just playing with these guys, best friends and great teammates, makes this all the more satisfying.”

Wire’s name certainly won’t jump off the Cornell stat sheet. He’s seventh on the team in playing time (11.9 mpg) and is averaging 1.9 points and 2.6 rebounds. In the Big Red’s first two NCAA tournament games, he’s taken only one shot. (He made it.)

But on Sunday, Wire chipped in with six rebounds, an assist and a steal as Cornell delivered a near-perfect game against Wisconsin.

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New York Post –  Cornell wants coach to stay, well, Red

Whenever this magical ride does end for Cornell, which is in the Sweet 16 for the first time in school history and is the first Ivy League team to make it this far in 31 years, Cornell athletic director Andy Noel quietly is bracing for the outsiders to come calling for Donahue.

“I would be shocked if there weren’t a lot of offers after this season because there were a lot of offers the past two seasons,” Noel told The Post yesterday.

“I’ll do anything and everything in my power to make Cornell as attractive a job as it can possibly be for him with hopes he can stay many years and become the Pete Carril for Cornell,” Noel said, referring to the Princeton coach from 1967 to 1996.

Donahue’s players have heard the talk of other teams’ interest in their coach and have tried to block it out.

“He deserves it,” Cornell sophomore guard Chris Wroblewski said.

“Obviously, we would all hate to see him leave,” Cornell senior forward Ryan Wittman said. “He’s an unbelievable coach, an unbelievable person. That is something to think about once the season is over. No matter what happens, I’ll be cheering for him.”

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Cleveland Plain Dealer — Cornell men’s basketball always has a shot with Ryan Wittman

Ryan Wittman with his mom and sister, 1999. Scott Shaw / Plain Dealer

Long before he became an NCAA Tournament bracket-killer at Cornell, little Ryan Wittman’s sweet shooting touch was on full display right here in Cleveland.

It was back in 1999-2001, when his dad, Randy, coached the Cavaliers and the place was called Gund Arena.

At every home game, the Cavs set up a giant, inflatable Pop-a-Shot on the concourse and invited fans to compete for a small prize. In Pop-a-Shot, players try to sink as many baskets as they can in 30 seconds. The winner was announced midway through the third quarter of each game.

And on many nights, fans would hear a familiar name as the sharpshooter was announced, “Tonight’s Pop-a-Shot winner is . . .”

“You’d see the eyes rolling, and there would be that Wittman kid again,” said Mark Heffernan, a former director of game-day entertainment for the Cavs. “It became kind of a running joke that his name would show up several times a week, depending on how many home games we had.”

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Ithaca Journal — Mid-Majors like Cornell now packing clout

“I think the (talent) gap’s been closing for a while in my opinion,” senior forward Jon Jaques said. “This year the mid-major teams have happened to win more than they’ve had in the past. I think the gap’s smaller than it has been in a while — more than people think.

“People say athleticism might be different, or size, but you can make up for that with just skill and precision and that sort of thing.”

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Wall Street Journal — March Sanity

Each year, college hoops distract from dismal political realities—and along the way gives us some underdogs to root for. This year’s tourney is even better than usual.

… Joining them in the sweetest of Sweet Sixteens is Cornell. The Ivy League champion for the past three seasons, the Big Red had never before won a game in the NCAA tournament. But Cornell is no Cinderella, having given two giants, Syracuse and Kansas, a scare on the road earlier in the season. Their 29-4 record isn’t bad for a program that offers no athletic scholarships. Next up for Cornell is Kentucky, which graduates 31% of its basketball players.

With few if any professional scouts knocking on the doors, Cornell’s senior guard, Louis Dale, says that he and his teammates have only “babies and memories” to look forward to. Thanks to Mr. Dale and the Panthers of Northern Iowa, the Gaels of St. Mary’s and other hoops Hail Marys, this year’s tournament is offering wonderful diversion from those who can’t bear to watch Washington.

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NPR — NYC Basketball Fans Look North, Shake Their Heads

To add to the Big Apple’s basketball disgrace, the upstate of New York — which, for the city’s sporting types, has historically only consisted of the Saratoga race track — not only produced a No. 1 seed in Syracuse, but also in the regionals, it has Cornell.

Cornell! From the Ivy League. Cornell, far above Cayuga’s waters. Wherever. Syracuse and Cornell. And there in New York City, a basketball vacuum. It’s like they took the kangaroos out of Australia.

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Columbia Spectator — Cheering for Cornell but hoping for Columbia

At the end of the day, Cornell is a great story, but to me it’s just that. I don’t go to Cornell, I go to Columbia, and I’m damn proud of it. I want to see my Columbia Lions in the NCAA tournament, and not just as a “happy-to-be-here” type of team, but as one that can legitimately beat quality teams.

Don’t laugh it off so easily. Any team can become good in a hurry, just look at Cornell. In Steve Donahue’s first year at Cornell, they went 3-11 in Ivy play. In fact, they didn’t go above .500 until his fifth year at the helm.

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New York Post — Cinderellas crash

Now we have a second-weekend invasion of mid-majors, five of them, all of them invading the portion of the NCAA Tournament to which they are never supposed to be invited. Their province is always the first weekend — specifically the first round, where they knock off the occasional big-conference behemoth, take advantage of some unsuspecting victim. And then fall back into the recesses.

They all come with their own stories, too, and their own memories. For Cornell, it is an Ivy League revival 31 years in the making, proof that the right players jelling under the right coach in the right system really can yield the kind of basketball tale that Penn gave us in 1979, the year of Bird and Magic.

“Cinderella implies we’re lucky or it’s a fairy tale,” Omar Samhan, the Gaels’ center who vaporized Villanova all by himself, said earlier this week. “Who do we have to beat for people to think this isn’t a fluke?”

For starters, for Saint Mary’s, there is Baylor, then probably Duke. For Northern Iowa there is Michigan State, and for Xavier there is Kansas State, and for Butler there is Syracuse. And, of course, for Cornell there is big, bad Kentucky, a game that will almost undoubtedly have the country choosing sides, most everyone outside the Commonwealth going with the kids from Ithaca.

“It’s going to be a road game for us,” Kentucky coach John Calipari quipped. “You know it and I know it. They’re not only 57 or 59 miles away from Syracuse, but everyone wants to root for them.”

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Boston Globe — Clinging to an Ivy climber

Donahue is a onetime high school junior varsity coach who has five kids. Kentucky is coached by the one and only John Calipari, a man with more vacancies than the Bates Motel. You can see Coach Cal on those DirecTV commercials, but you’ve never seen him in old Final Four footage because, technically speaking, he’s never been there. Cal’s magic rides with UMass (1996) and Memphis (2008) were both erased by the NCAA.

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Louisville Courier Journal — Cornell’s Wittman living “every kid’s dream”

Ryan Wittman has seen the tape numerous times and heard his father talk all about the experience. But those memories of Indiana University’s 1981 NCAA basketball title are ultimately not his.

Cornell’s surprising run to the Sweet 16 has Wittman believing he can form his own memories from winning college basketball’s ultimate prize.

“It’s every kid’s dream no matter where they’re playing,” said Wittman, son of Randy Wittman, a starting guard on that ‘81 team. “Once you get into the tournament, anything can happen. We’re playing extremely well right now.”

Much of Ryan’s development came from being around the NBA lifestyle.

“I would get to go to shootarounds occasionally, just see guys in the NBA playing, working hard and stuff like that,” he said. “It became a normal part of my life.”

When he did get to play with the pros, they didn’t take it easy on him. Wittman recalled that as a fifth-grader he was shooting on a goal during a Minnesota Timberwolves practice when Kevin Garnett, now with the Boston Celtics, came over and started to guard him.

“He swatted my shot about seven or eight times, kind of put me in my place,” Wittman said.

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Other stories:

• Harvard Crimson’s The Back Page — Cornell Accomplishing Big Feats As of Late
• Columbia Spectator — Cornell senior stars take unusual path to the big dance
• Columbia Spectator — Road to the Final Four: A look at past and present Ivy League success at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament

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The Ithaca Journal profiles Cornell junior Adam Wire.

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This may or may not have already been mentioned, but USA Today updated team reports back on Jan 27th (Wednesday).

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Storming the Floor presents Part III of its “Covering the Ivy” series.  It presents a list of potential Ivy League Player of the Year candidates, including Agho, Mullery, Zampier, Rosen, Wittman, Foote, and Lin.

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The Ithaca Journal runs a story about Cornell’s top 25 ranking.

Cornell sophomore guard Chris Wroblewski said he and his teammates received several text messages of congratulations from past teammates, family and friends. Some were in mock disbelief.

“You know, like, ‘What’s an Ivy League team doing in the top 25?’ ” Wroblewski said. “But it’s pretty cool.”

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Storming the Floor briefly mentions the Cornell-Harvard game:

So much for the most anticipated Ivy League match-up since Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960. Harvard, undefeated in conference play, traveled to Ithaca on Saturday night to take on a Cornell squad that also hadn’t lost in the Ivy League. And the Crimson might as well have stayed home. The Big Red took no pity on their opponents, beating the Crimson by 36 points, despite Harvard star Jeremy Lin scoring 19 points. Crimson coach Tommy Amaker had no answer for Cornell’s seven-foot center Jeff Foote who dropped 16 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked three shots. The win, combined with a similar drubbing of Dartmouth, put Cornell in the rankings for the first time in 59 years, coming in at No. 25 on the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll.

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Read about Cornell’s #25 ranking in the Cornell Daily Sun (expanded story) and the Columbia Spectator.

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SBNation discusses Cornell’s #25 ranking:

Dick Jerardi on the Penn-Brown game:

On Friday at Yale, Jerome Allen lost his first Ivy League game since he was a freshman at Penn in 1992. But the losing streak ended Saturday when the Quakers, looking just about out of it at Brown, won, 55-54, on a Dan Monckton putback at the buzzer.

All looked lost for Penn (2-14, 1-1 Ivy) when Brown (8-13, 1-3) led by a point with 5 seconds left and was shooting a one-and-one. Tyler Halpern missed. Penn’s Zack Rosen advanced the ball to Zack Gordon, who threw up an airball – which went right to Monckton, who dropped it in.

Rosen had 19 points and Jack Eggleston had 18. The Quakers are not going to win the Ivy, but they are going to be in many of the games and win more than a few.

Was it good? Monckton’s shot was released either just before or after the buzzer. It was ruled good on the court. There was no monitor and no review.

Look out. If Penn won while shooting 19-for-57 (33 percent), imagine what might happen if the Quakers make some open shots.

Lots of misses. Penn shot 4-for-33 from the arc in the two Ivy games. And got a split. Got to love the Ivies.

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Dick Jerardi on Cornell-Harvard:

Sports Illustrated did a big piece this week on Harvard and its star, Jeremy Lin. Cornell (18-3, 4-0), the two-time defending Ivy champs, did a big number on Harvard (14-4, 3-1). The final Saturday at Cornell was 86-50.

Lin shot 6-for-9, but had eight of his team’s 25 turnovers. His teammates got punked, shooting 7-for-27. Harvard had just 13 field goals and only 36 attempts.

The Ivy still goes though Ithaca, N.Y.

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Cornell remains in Jerardi’s Top 15:

10. Cornell (18-3): Outscored Harvard by 30 points in the second half and crushed the Crimson, 86-50. Shot 12-for-27 from the arc and set the tone for the Ivy season.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Zach Klitzman was thrilled about Penn’s win at Brown but believes several problems still need to be addressed.

First off, there needs to be some changes to the lineup. With Penn averaging a mere 61.4 points per game and giving up 77.2, something must to be done in order to boost offensive production. The fact is that Rob Belcore and Darren Smith have underperformed.

In addition, something needs to be done to prevent the Quakers from coming out flat at the beginning of games. Friday’s contest against Yale started with an 11-0 deficit, effectively dooming Penn.

Finally, the Quakers must shoot fewer three-pointers. Overall, the team went 4-for-33 this weekend, including 1-for-18 Friday. For the season they have shot .292 from deep, ranking them 274 out of the 280 Division I teams that have made at least five threes per game.

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Zach Welliston of the Mid-Majority wonders, very seriously, in a lengthy post, whether Penn “sucks” or not.

Now, the goal of the 2009-10 version of Penn basketball is making it through the season with enough players to play games, and possibly to split the series with Princeton for pride’s sake. Penn is like you and me — just trying to make it through the day.

That doesn’t suck. The humble struggle for survival against odds triggers compassion, does it not? At the very least, it’s so ordinary that it doesn’t inspire any reaction or response at all. But when a lofty goal is introduced, a higher purpose, everything changes.

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Both Cornell and Kansas athletics sites have posted previews and game notes.

The Ithaca Journal’s Brian Delaney says this this will be Cornell’s #1 test of the season, especially for 7-footer Jeff Foote:

Cornell senior Jeff Foote has spent his entire collegiate career trying to prove doubters wrong, sometimes with humbling results.

An early snapshot of his Big Red play was walking off the Honda Center court in March 2008, after Stanford’s 7-foot Lopez twins dwarfed Foote in a five-foul, two-point outing over 24 minutes of a 24-point NCAA tournament loss.

Foote took that first-round exit personally, channeling his disappointment in the weight room. His offseason efforts over two years since have been well-documented. Now 40 pounds heavier, he’s enjoying a collegiate-best year at 13.6 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. He shoots 58 percent from the field.

At 8 tonight, he’ll find himself staring at his best opportunity since Stanford to prove his worth on a national scale.

View a recent video (December 16, 2009) about how Jeff Foote ate “enough to feed a large rhino” in order to gain those 40 pounds in the local news segment “Jeff Foote’s Hunger for Basketball”:

The University Daily Kansan writes “Kansas set to face overachieving Cornell,” and mentions that Cornell senior guard Geoff Reeves, a Kansas native, has a few former high school teammates on the Kansas team.  Reeves averages 7 points a game for Cornell. Excerpts from the Daily Kansan:

Cornell's Geoff Reeves, a Burlington KS native, will have former high school teammates on the opposing team.

Before the season began, Cornell looked like just another notch on Kansas’ non-conference belt.

But in the midst of a 10-game win streak, the Big Red (12-2) is bringing much more than originally expected to Allen Fieldhouse Wednesday.

Four out of Cornell’s five starters are seniors and 12 players out of their 18-man roster are upper classmen. They also have multiple players 6-foot-9 and above to match up with junior center Cole Aldrich.

“It’s going to be a good challenge,” Aldrich said. “They’ve got a big team, but I think the most important thing is they have a lot of seniors on that team.”

“They can flat out shoot it,” [Kansas coach Bill] Self said. “They’ve got six guys shooting a percentage higher than Sherron’s, which is a pretty remarkable stat.”

Another Cornell player, senior guard Geoff Reeves, will make his Kansas homecoming.

Reed, along with junior guard Brady Morningstar, once played alongside Reeves: Morningstar in AAU basketball for KC Pump N’ Run and Reed in high school.

Reeves and Reed won a championship together at Burlington HS, but the two haven’t communicated coming into this game.

“I haven’t talked to him on the phone about it at all or anything like that,” Reed said.

The Ithaca Journal also posts an article about Reeves’s homecoming:

In his days as a middle school student, Geoff Reeves would go to Allen Fieldhouse on the campus of Kansas University and dream of donning the white and blue.

“Everyone wanted to be a KU basketball player back then,” said Reeves, a 6-foot-4 senior guard for Cornell. “I’m looking forward to playing in that atmosphere.”

He’ll get his chance tonight, when the Big Red pays a visit to the top-ranked Jayhawks (13-0) in their comfy home confines — where the hosts have won a Division I-best 50 straight games.

Cornell junior forward Adam Wire is mentioned in his local paper, the Southern Pines Pilot:

Pinecrest graduate Adam Wire and the Cornell basketball team (12-2) face a daunting challenge tonight when they meet No. 1 ranked Kansas (13-0) on the Jayhawks’ court.

The Big Red has won 10 games in a row, including a 71-66 defeat of St. John’s in the championship game of the Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival on Dec. 22. Wire’s parents, Mike and Cheryl Wire, who now live in Tennessee, and other family members and friends also made the trip to New York City. Adam was scoreless in that game but had three assists, two steals and a rebound in 16 minutes of action.

A week later, the 6-foot-5 forward scored four points and grabbed nine caroms in 27 minutes as the Big Red defeated LaSalle 78-75. The Ivy League favorites have won six games this year in New York City and Philadelphia

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