ITHACA, N.Y. — In a game between the two Ivy League men’s basketball unbeatens, something had to give. On Saturday, it gave in favor of the Princeton Tigers.
Princeton outscored Cornell 12-5 in the final four minutes to win 75-68 and take an outright league lead. Mistakes added up for Cornell as the Tigers found a way to get the Big Red out of rhythm on offense.
“[Princeton] just slowed us down, mucked it up a little bit and I don’t think we reacted well to it,” Cornell coach Brian Earl said. “Just some really dumb plays. Just let it get away from us a little bit — too much one-on-one.
“[Princeton] just guards hard. They switched into us a lot, and a lot of time, we tried to roll it in or do some one-on-one stuff. It’s not necessarily what we want to do. We played their game and they didn’t play ours.”
The Tigers (12-4, 3-0 Ivy) led for most of the first half before Cornell sophomore forward Guy Ragland Jr. scored 10 consecutive points for the Big Red (12-4, 2-1) to close the half. Princeton junior guard Matt Allocco seemingly hit a buzzer-beater to tie the game at 37 at the half, but upon review, officials deemed the shot didn’t get off in time, so Cornell led 37-34 after 20 minutes.
Ragland’s spurt gave Cornell life going into the locker room.
“They were huge for us — a big momentum shift,” Ragland said. “It’s unfortunate it was going into the half and not more time after that, but more importantly, stopping them and turning them over was bigger for us.”
The Big Red fed off it. Four minutes into the second half, Cornell went on a 10-3 run to take a 51-44 lead with 13:06 remaining, its largest lead of the night. But from that point on, it was all Princeton.
Senior forward Tosan Evbuomwan hit a floater, freshman guard Deven Austin scored a layup and senior guard Ryan Langborg hit a pair of free throws to cut it down to one.
With 4:36 remaining, Cornell junior guard Isaiah Gray hit a pair of free throws to tie the game at 63. After Austin hit a three, junior forward Sean Hansen secured a putback layup to put the Big Red back within one.
A deep Allocco runner, two Evbuomwan free throws and three Langborg free throws later, Princeton put the finishing touches on the Big Red as Cornell failed to record a field goal until three seconds remaining.
“We fouled them a couple of times when we should have let them take a shot and try and get a rebound,” Earl said.
Cornell shot just 37% from the field in the second half, making just three of its 10 threes.
“[Princeton was] just baiting us into taking the shots they want us to take,” Ragland said. “One-on-one shots, the shots that we don’t want necessarily want to take, but are easy to goad ourselves into taking.”
Langborg ended with 20 for Princeton and Austin added 15 off 6-for-6 shooting in a career-high effort. Evbuomwan did it all, scoring 15 points with nine assists and seven rebounds.
“We obviously turn a lot of people over, but we will also give up some easy baskets because of it,” Earl said. “[Austin] took advantage and Langborg had a good game, too.”
Manon led the Big Red with 15 points off a perfect 3-for-3 night from downtown. Ragland had 13 points and eight rebounds and Gray added 11 points. Sophomore guard Nazir Williams was held scoreless.
Three things for Cornell
- Leading scorer and three-point shooter Greg Dolan was held to just 19 points over two games this weekend. The Big Red are 2-2 in games when he is held to fewer than 10 points.
- Despite being third on the team in scoring (10 points per game) and seventh in total minutes, Manon leads the team with a 28.5% usage rate, per KenPom.
- Gray has scored in double figures in each of the last four games. He had scored in double figures just three times prior.
Bulldogs are coming to town
Cornell and Newman Arena will get national attention on Fri., Jan. 13 when the Yale Bulldogs come to town for a standalone showcase game on ESPNU.
Both teams are in need of a victory.
Yale lost its first two conference games before finally getting on the board with a win over Harvard on Saturday. Cornell will depart for four of the next five on the road afterward.
The Big Red can get back to a tie for first place in the league with a win Friday and a Princeton loss at Brown on Saturday.
“It’s going to be tough — similar to Princeton,” Earl said. “We’re going to have to get back to playing the way we want to play.”
Cornell wants to focus back on the little things and rediscover its offensive groove in practice this week.
“Start back at square one: turnovers, good passes, making the right play versus the me play,” Ragland said. “A lot of times, we just kind of got out of it, but keeping our heads while still maintaining our pace which is faster than most teams are comfortable playing.”