Feeling a sense of urgency after starting the 2026 Ivy League campaign with three straight losses, the Cornell men’s basketball team dominated on both sides of the ball to cruise to an 89-67 triumph over Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center Monday.
The Cornell win marks the fifth straight time in the series that the road team came away victorious.
With the Martin Luther King Jr. Day matinee win, the Big Red (8-9, 1-3 Ivy League) moved into a three-way tie for sixth place in league play with the Bears (7-10, 1-3) and Columbia, which was swept by Bruno and Yale over the holiday weekend.
“Starting 0-3 is never ideal, but we know what team we’re capable of being,” senior guard Cooper Noard told ESPN+ after the game. “It doesn’t matter how the other team is guarding us, it just matters that we have the right energy and the right confidence.”
Cornell took control quickly, making its first four buckets of the game and forcing Brown coach Mike Martin to call timeout with his team down 9-2 at the 16:39 mark.
The Red extended their lead to 20-12, when the Bears went on a 11-3 run to knot things up at 23.
That would prove to be the high point of the game for Brown, as Cornell outscored Bruno 22-5 over the last seven minutes, including a 13-0 run, to head into the break with a 45-28 lead.
To make a great ending to the half even better for the Big Red, Noard hit a running triple from deep beyond the arc at the buzzer to go over the 1,000-point mark for his career.
“Twenty-eight points in the first half, not nearly good enough.” Martin told ESPN+ at intermission. “We’ve got to do everything better (in the second half).”
While Brown did play better over the final twenty minutes, it wasn’t good enough to make a significant difference on the scoreboard.
Cornell stretched its lead to 21 points within the first three minutes of the half and later extended its advantage to 70-45 just before the midway point of the half.
The Bears cut the deficit to 16, 77-61, with just over six minutes to go, but the Big Red wouldn’t let Bruno get any closer.
Below are several keys to Cornell’s big win at The Pizz:
Defense
While the Big Red isn’t generally known for defense, they held a team to under 100 points for the first time in its last five Division I games and the 67 points were the lowest allowed to an opponent all year.
“It was about coming together and being connected for a full 40 minutes,” said Noard. “No matter who’s on the floor, all that matters is that we have the right aggression and confidence to us on the defensive end.”
From two-point range, Cornell’s have opponents connected on 57.9% of its attempts, which was No. 336 in the land. On Monday, however, Bruno shot 51.4% (19-for-37) for the game and was limited to only 45% (9-for-20) in the decisive opening half.
A big key for the interior defense was the double-teaming of Brown’s star forward Landon Lewis.
Lewis totaled 26 points with 16 field-goal and six free-throw attempts over 39 minutes of action against Columbia two days earlier, but the constant pressure frustrated the big man into three first half fouls, six points, five field-goal attempts and two shots from the charity stripe.
In addition, the Big Red used their 83.9% defensive rebounding rate to limit Bruno to only two second chance points.
Cornell’s two-point defensive rate certainly had a low raking when the team arrived in Providence, but it’s three-point rate of 39.6% was ranked even lower (No. 363 out of 365).
Between the Big Red’s fast tempo and the interior double-teaming, Brown’s discipline and inside-out game were not what the home team would have liked, resulting in a 16.7% (2-for-12) three-point effort in the opening 20 minutes and 31.6% (6-for-19) for the afternoon.
Offense
While the Cornell defense was the surprising star of the afternoon, the offense certainly held its own.
The Big Red were successful inside the arc on 65.5% (19-for-29) of its attempts with a 70% rate in the opening half and 63.2% in the final stanza. Not to be outdone from beyond the arc, Cornell shot 41.4% (12-for-29), featuring a 44.4% (8-for-18) result in the first 20 minutes of the day.
Fiegen, Noard, Sepp and Nimani
On the stellar day for Cornell, the team’s two senior guards led the way.
Jake Fiegen topped all scorers and rebounders with 31 points on 80% (12-for-15) shooting and nine rebounds, while Noard added 20 points on a 60% (6-for-10) effort from the field and a 100% (6-for-6) result from the free throw line.
The Big Red reserves also got into the action, with sophomore guard Anthony Nimani totaling nine points off of three triples in 24 minutes, and junior forward Kaspar Sepp stuffing the stat line with six rebounds, five assists and two points over 22 minutes.
Up next
Both teams are back in action next Saturday with Cornell concluding a three-game road trip at Harvard (10-8, 3-1) and Brown heading to Jadwin Gymnasium to take on Princeton.