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Brown’s hastily scheduled tilt at Syracuse went south quickly in the second half, as the Orange powered their way to a 93-62 win Monday.
The Orange (6-5, 1-0 ACC) went on a tear after the Bears (8-6, 0-0 Ivy) clawed their way from an early hole to get within 38-32 at halftime of the clash scheduled as a COVID-19 replacement date after games against Lehigh and Cornell were postponed due to the pandemic.
It’s time for Ivy Hoops Online’s annual exchange with Wes Cheng of The Juice Online, except with Brown taking Cornell’s place – for now – after Syracuse added a home game against Brown to be held Monday after COVID-related cancellations of their games against Lehigh and Cornell. Big Red fans should take note that the latter has been rescheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Carrier Dome.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ were looking up at the end of last week, but more importantly, it’s a good time to be bullish about Ivy League basketball. There’s going to be an actual Ivy hoops season this year, and we’re here to herald its return together. Here’s how Ivy Hoops Online contributors feel about some of the storylines within that greater, happy story as the 2021-22 campaign approaches.
Cornell will play its first game in two weeks when it visits Syracuse Tuesday evening at the Carrier Dome. Cornell is coming off a 78-62 win over Southeast Missouri State in Las Vegas, and the Orange are coming off an embarrassing 93-60 loss to St. John’s at the Carrier Dome, the worst home loss Syracuse has suffered in Jim Boeheim’s 41 seasons as coach.
To get us prepped for the game, we sat down with our friend Wes Cheng over at The Juice Online to get an Orange scouting report for the upcoming game.
Following our countdown of the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s men’s basketball history this summer, Ivy Hoops Online is delighted to continue celebrating the 60th anniversary of modern Ivy League basketball by honoring the top 60 players in Ivy hoops history (in no particular order). For the next entry in our Ivy 60 for 60 series, we focus on John Bajusz, one of the greatest players in Cornell basketball history…
In the fall of September 1986, Philadelphia Inquirer writer Dan Rottenberg described his disappointment in then-first year Eagles coach Buddy Ryan, who refused to shake hands with opponents following games. When looking for the antidote to Ryan’s unprofessional behavior, Rottenberg remembered the actions of Cornell star John Bajusz.
In March 1986, the Big Red went down to the Palestra with a one game lead on Brown with two games remaining. Cornell’s star captain was blanketed by Penn defenders all evening, forcing him into extremely long outside shots. Although miraculously making nine of 12 shots and going 6-for-6 from the charity stripe, his team was down eight with a minute to go. After being removed from the game by coach Tom Miller, a disappointed Bajusz (pronounced BAY-us) refused to go to the bench until he ran to midcourt to warmly shake the hands of the three Quakers defenders and wave congratulations to the remaining two Penn players under the basket. Without a title, the 21-year-old Bajusz was more of a champion than a Super Bowl winning coach greater than twice his age.
Oddly, the main theme of last month’s Ivy preseason teleconference seemed to be the value of tough nonconference scheduling. Nearly every Ivy coach talked at length about how scheduling a challenging nonconference slate made teams better. We all know that strength of schedule becomes a major factor for teams in power conferences as Selection Sunday approaches, but that doesn’t apply to the 14-game tournament that is the Ivy League. Still, we’ll likely to learn a lot about our beloved Ancient Eight when they hit the road to take on some of the nation’s most powerful programs. At the very least, nonconference play can be exciting when we least expect it. Who expected Cornell to jump out to a 14-point lead at No. 8 Syracuse last November? Who expected No. 2 Michigan State to trail Columbia by seven in the second half at the Breslin Center and the game to swing for good on back-to-back phony shot clock countdowns?