Ivy League Basketball News

The Ithaca Journal discusses Cornell’s Andre Wilkins Senior Night start.

The only senior who had never started at Cornell, the 6-foot-3 Wilkins was inserted into the opening lineup by coach Steve Donahue on Senior Night. The subsequent 4 minutes, 26 seconds were a virtual highlight reel of plays by the Toronto native.

It’s probably a tape the coaching staff should get to him before he graduates.

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MyCentralJersey.com profiles Penn’s Zack Rosen.

Playing high school basketball at places like Colonia and St. Benedict’s prepared Zack Rosen for the rigors of the next level, with one glaring exception.

He wasn’t ready for the losing.

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The Daily Pennsylvnian’s Ivy Hoops Notebook discusses the Princeton @ Cornell game and Academic-All Americans Patrick Foley (Columbia) and Matt Mullery (Brown).

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The Philadelphia Inquirer thinks Penn has lost some momentum and surveys Penn’s week ahead, including Senior Night.

…This year’s Quakers gained some momentum from splitting each of their first four Ivy weekends this season. That streak came to an end Saturday as the Quakers were routed at Cornell after losing in the final seconds Friday at Columbia.

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With a few words from Steve Donahue, Ryan Wittman, Andre Wilkins, and Louis Dale.

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The Cornell Basketball Team welcomes you to their humble abode.  Louis Dale, Jeff Foote, Andre Wilkins, Chris Wroblewski, Jon Jaques, and Alex Tyler show you around their bedrooms.

Related video: Members of the Cornell basketball discuss what it’s like to live in one house. (Click here.)

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Cornell faced Div III opponent Penn St. – Behrends yesterday.

The easy 73-49 victory presented an opportunity to clear the entire bench and give several freshmen their first minutes and/or points of the season.

Brian Delaney of the Ithaca Journal reflects on how the Div III opponent’s Princeton-style offense provided meaningful preparations for conference play.

The story also includes extensive quotes from senior Andre Wilkins on the difficulties of finding playing time on a 19-man Cornell team.

Read the story here.  Some excerpts:

One reason Steve Donahue likes putting a Division III opponent on his schedule is it gives the 10th-year coach an opportunity to reward his bench with meaningful minutes.

Cornell was far from sharp, and Donahue was forced to play his regulars more minutes than he’d probably like, but the Big Red was never seriously threatened in a 73-49 victory in front of 2,218 at Newman Arena.

Behrend’s perimeter-oriented personnel and Princeton-style offense was a departure from the free-flowing, athletic opponents — like St. John’s and La Salle — that Cornell has recently beaten.

“Now you play a team that in reality is probably closer to an Ivy League team than St. John’s,” Donahue said. “I thought there were stretches in the first half where we were not ready to play on the defensive end and they made us pay for it.”

Senior guard Andre Wilkins, who saw his first meaningful minutes of the season in Tuesday’s first half at La Salle, said the Division III games aren’t just a reward– they’re also another opportunity to try and crack Donahue’s jam-packed rotation.

That isn’t easy, considering Donahue has 19 players at his disposal in practice, 18 of which are active on game day.

“It feels like you’re part of a gang more than a part of a team,” Wilkins said jokingly.

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In “Cornell reserves step up, may do so again today“, the Ithaca Journal’s Brian Delaney writes  about the large number of players who came off the bench during Cornell’s win against La Salle yesterday.

In the absense of senior starters Louis Dale and Alex Tyler due to injuries, Geoff Reeves and Adam Wire saw 19 and 27 minutes of play, respectively. Mark Coury and Max Groebe also came in off the bench. Coury had 5 points.

Perhaps most notable was the contribution of rarely used senior Andre Wilkins and freshman Josh Figini, who played meaningful minutes in a tight first half, scoring two points each and extending Cornell’s lead to set up an 11-point cushion going into the break.  Figini saw action for the first time this season.

More reserves will probably contribute when Cornell faces non-Div I opponent Penn State-Behrend today at 2 pm.

On senior Andre Wilkins and freshman Josh Figini:

“It just goes to show everyone being ready,” senior forward Ryan Wittman said. “Josh and Andre coming and giving us good minutes in the first half, it was just a great team win.”

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