After Colgate’s Damon Sherman-Newsome scored the first eight points of the game against Cornell, the Big Red looked a lot like the 2-26 Big Red of 2013-14: sluggish and ineffective. Later, a 23-6 Big Red deficit had them looking like a carbon copy of that 2013-14 squad.
Then Devin Cherry kicked his game into high gear, turning in a career performance and almost single-handedly turning the game around for Cornell. Cherry finished with 21 points, five assists, four boards and three steals while shooting an efficient 8-for-15 from the floor. He scored 20 of Cornell’s first 49 points and made sure the Big Red didn’t fade completely in the first half. He played with passion and he was consistently rewarded for it.
To put Cornell’s win into proper perspective, the Big Red lost to Colgate by 23 last year. Cornell is making sure we all know this is not last year.
Do you believe in the power of transitive property? Cornell beat George Mason, who beat Princeton, who beat Rider, who blew out Penn. The Big Red now look to be a middle-of-the-pack Ivy team whose stock is rising fast. What’s perhaps most encouraging (and intriguing) about Cornell’s comeback victory over Colgate is that Shonn Miller wasn’t the driving force behind it. Miller was just 2-for-9 from the field for seven points and the Big Red still won thanks to timely scoring from JoJo Fallas (!) and offensive efficiency from Galal Cancer (zero turnovers).
This isn’t Shonn Miller and a bunch of guys. It’s a team.
And it’s a suddenly confident team with two very early wins and counting. The upcoming Charleston Classic, in which Cornell will play several power conference schools, including South Carolina, will be very challenging. But at least this program – and coach Bill Courtney – appear to have their legs under them again.