Cornell trailed 54-36 at Jadwin Gym with less than 14 minutes remaining and it looked like the game may be too far out of reach.
A 23-7 Big Red fun followed, with Riley Voss and Jimmy Boeheim leading the way on the scoring front.
But Cornell couldn’t muster a field goal in the final 5:58, losing 68-59, done in by eight points down the stretch from Ryan Schwieger en route to his leading all scorers with a career-high 23 points.
A lot went wrong for the visitors
Cornell had eight first-half turnovers, stemming from bad passes and just an inability to hold onto the basketball. The Big Red’s perimeter defense let them down early, resulting in two threes from Jaelin Llewellyn and another trey from Jerome Desrosiers, as well as a deep two from Schwieger. All of those shots were basically uncontested.
The Big Red yet again got hammered on the boards, by an 11-rebound, five-offensive board margin. Princeton garnered 11 second-chance points to Cornell’s four. The rebounds are just such a big issue for the Big Red.
Cornell managed better second-half ball control, and Princeton did actually commit more turnovers (17 to Cornell’s 15).
Josh Warren picked up a technical foul with 6:12 left after the Cornell bench became dissatisfied after a few no-calls. Warren had six in the first half and was scoreless in the second.
Jimmy Boeheim struggled from behind the three-point line, going 0-for-5 on five good looks. He hit four shots down low where he is best, though.
Matt Morgan was held to a season-low 12 points on with just two threes, both coming within seconds of each other late in the first half. He had a nice all-around effort with six rebounds, four assists and two steals, too. Morgan did have enough space to knock down DEEP threes but didn’t pull the trigger like he did against Syracuse, Towson and Dartmouth earlier this season.
Riley Voss was huge off of the bench with a career-high 13 points to help bring Cornell back. His threes were pretty deep, too. Cornell could certainly benefit more performances like that from him in the near future.
Saturday may decide Ivy Madness
Now tied for second in the Ivy standings with Harvard, Princeton will host Columbia Saturday, with the Lions fresh off a buzzer-beating win over Penn, dropping the Quakers to 3-6 in Ivy play. Cornell now heads for the Palestra, where a Big Red win would just about end Penn’s hopes for an Ivy League Tournament berth.