ITHACA, N.Y. — Since former Cornell men’s coach Steve Donahue took over Penn in 2015, the Big Red have beaten him just once.
Make that twice after Friday night.
Fueled by a 13-0 run with less than 12 minutes remaining, the Big Red pulled away from the Quakers late to secure an 88-69 victory to stay unbeaten at Newman Arena and in the Ivy.
The Big Red knew their three-game homestand wouldn’t be easy, but they passed their first test.
“Happy with the win. These weekends are tough,” Cornell coach Brian Earl said, referring to the first back-to-back of the season. “It’s good to get a win against a very good team.”
Cornell (12-3, 2-0 Ivy) and Penn (8-8, 1-1) traded blows in the first 20 minutes, playing a physical brand of basketball. The Quakers seemed to slow the Big Red down, forcing longer possessions and even three shot clock violations.
But toward the end of the first half, Cornell seemed to finally find a bit of a rhythm — which means they sped up. The hosts went into the locker room with a 41-37 lead, but Penn came out and got its first lead of the half at 51-50 after a pair of Clark Slajchert free throws.
The Quakers again took a one-point lead with 11:51 remaining, but Cornell proceeded to outscored the visitors 33-13 from that point on.
“The shots got a little more open, and we basically said, shoot it if you got it,” Earl described. “If we’re going down, we’re going down shooting, and people should know that by now.
“[Penn] played hard-nosed defense. They mind the cutters, which we do a lot, which takes us away from being able to score easy two-pointers. Our guys are sort of trained to take the best shot that we can get, and sometimes with really good defense, it’s hard to find those shots.”
As usual, Cornell boasted a balanced scoring distribution, but it was junior guard Isaiah Gray leading the Big Red. After scoring 12 key points against Dartmouth on Sunday, he stepped up with 15 points off 7-for-11 shooting.
“Just trying to be aggressive,” Gray said. “Starting league play, every game in the Ivy League counts. Just watching a lot of film, being really analytical and seeing the best ways I can help my team, and today, it was getting the layups that I knew I could make.”
Earl said Gray’s inside presence and finishing ability helps space the floor better around the team’s shooters.
“He’s got a knack for getting to the rim, and with so many shooters out there, I think he can get an edge on guys closing out a little harder than they would and he takes advantage of it when he can,” Earl said. “He’s strong at the rim, absorbs contact and was really good for us tonight.”
Gray also took primary responsibility of guarding Penn junior Jordan Dingle. Along with junior Chris Manon, the duo kept Dingle to 21 points of 7-for-17 shooting, below his season average of 23.6 points.
“He’s a really good player. The numbers say it,” Gray said. “We knew that [Penn was] going to try and get a lot through him. We had to keep throwing guys at him, hopefully wear him out and I think that’s what we did.”
Junior Sean Hansen and sophomore Nazir Williams each added 13 for the Big Red. Senior Greg Dolan registered 11 and junior Keller Boothby rung up nine off three triples.
Slajchert, fresh off 31 points over Brown on Monday, tallied 15 for Penn off 5-for-7 shooting. Junior Max Martz added 13, 11 of which came in the first half off 5-for-5 shooting.
Cornell restricted Penn to 39% shooting in the second half after the Quakers shot 57% in the first half. The Big Red shot 51% and 37% from downtown. Penn won the rebound battle 33-31 and had 20 turnovers to Cornell’s 13.
First place is on the line Saturday
Moments following Friday’s game, Earl watched on his phone as Yale lost 81-77 to Dartmouth to drop to 0-2 in Ivy play. Many expected the two-time reigning league champions to start 2-0 in pursuit of another title.
Instead, just two teams are undefeated in league play, and they happen to match up an important early season game Saturday. Cornell will host Princeton after the Tigers convincingly walked away from Levien Gym with a 68-49 win over Columbia on Friday.
These two teams are certainly very familiar. Last season, Princeton won 72-70 at home off a buzzer-beater from junior Matt Allocco before Cornell won 88-83 on its home court. In the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament, the Tigers fended off a Big Red comeback to win 77-73 before falling to Yale in the championship.
“We just got to go and play defense for 40 minutes, and we know what we can do on offense,” Gray said. “We just got to lock in, get a good night’s sleep, and we’re back at it again tomorrow.”
Earl, of course, played for the Tigers in college and won the 1998-99 Ivy League Player of the Year award. He served as an assistant for both Sydney Johnson and current coach Mitch Henderson before taking the job at Cornell.
“I’m hoping for a six-hour ride for Princeton or something,” Earl joked. “They’ve got a ton of talent — we’re going to have to find the reserves that you to need to find on back-to-back weekends and come out hungry like we did tonight.”