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HANOVER, N.H. – When we last left the Cornell men’s basketball team, it had given up 100 points or more in three straight Ivy League losses and didn’t seem to have many answers, seemingly on its way to being the third straight Ivy Madness hosts to not qualify for postseason play.
Fast forward six weeks, and the Big Red will not only be on the court in Ithaca next week, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see them win it.
With the clock ticking down and overtime likely, Cornell’s Jake Fiegen found a slight opening at the top of the arc and launched a last-second shot over the outstretched arm of senior forward Nick Townsend.
The senior guard’s triple hit nothing but the bottom of the net, leading the Big Red to a 72-69 upset of first-place Yale Friday night at Newman Arena.
Capping off the hard-fought victory, the boisterous Newman faithful stormed the court, showing their pride in a Cornell team that remains in the hunt for a spot in the Ivy League Tournament taking place on this same court in two weeks.
“We have such a great fanbase. Shoutout to the football team, shoutout to the everyone that was here,” senior guard Cooper Noard told ESPNU’s Derek Jones from courtside. “A super-special group they’ve got here tonight. I’m so proud of our fans, so proud of our team.”
Harvard men’s basketball is headed back to the Ivy League Tournament.
Powered by a stifling 40-minute defense and strong second-half offensive production, the Crimson throttled the Big Red, 73-54, at Newman Arena on Saturday afternoon to clinch a spot in the Ancient Eight’s upper division.
“It feels great to get to Ivy Madness. It’s been a while since this program has been there,” Tey Barbour said to ESPN+’s Eric Taylor after the sophomore guard’s career-best 30-point performance. “We had a heartbreaking loss (to Yale) last week, but I’m proud of our team to bounce back and have a great win.”
Penn has a clear path to an Ivy Madness berth after pulling off one of its best Palestra homestands in years.
The Quakers (13-10, 6-4 Ivy) have a tight grip on third place in the League standings after using a late surge to rally past Columbia on Friday, 76-67, and following that effort up with an 82-76 triumph over Cornell in a game that was played within a possession for much of the evening.
Penn, by virtue of its head-to-head sweep over Cornell (12-11, 5-5), is effectively two games ahead of the Big Red with four to play. If the Quakers just go .500 in their remaining contests, they’ll be two steps away from their first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2018.
It’s a position that few outside observers expected Penn to be in, given its opening KenPom ranking of 275 and consensus seventh-place pick in the Ivy preseason poll.
But now? The Quakers look like an ascending team in its first year under Fran McCaffery, who has taken a team which consists almost entirely of players he did not recruit and turned it into one of the most improved teams in the country.
How much so? We’ll get into that now, starting with how …
Princeton women’s basketball looked every bit like a team that had to endure a four-hour bus trip from Manhattan to Ithaca after a high-profile loss on Friday night, being outplayed and outhustled by Cornell over the opening 20 minutes of Saturday’s contest.
Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps an 89-65 romp for Cornell men’s basketball over Princeton Friday night at Jadwin Gym:
In the end, Penn women’s basketball coach Mike McLaughlin didn’t talk about Friday’s win at Cornell in terms of the Ivy League standings, though it was crucial.
And he didn’t mention revenge for the loss Cornell dealt Penn in West Philly last month.
He spoke like a fan.
“First of all, it was a great college basketball game,” he told ESPN+.
Columbia women’s basketball dominated Cornell in their second matchup of the season, 80–55, Saturday afternoon at Newman Arena.
With Manhattan experiencing Ithaca-like frigidity on Saturday afternoon, the visiting Cornell men’s basketball team felt right at home and used that wintry familiarity to dominate Columbia, 88-67, at Levien Gymnasium.
NEW YORK CITY — There were sublime stretches of play, infuriating periods of disjointedness and everything in between. In the end, it added up to Penn men’s basketball getting the split it needed to stay in contention for Ivy Madness during its only true road back-to-back of the season.