Brian Earl

Cornell hires Princeton assistant Brian Earl to be Big Red’s next head coach

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Brian Earl takes over as the 22nd head coach in Cornell men’s basketball history. (ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com)

Cornell Athletics announced Monday that it has hired Princeton assistant coach Brian Earl to be its next head coach, replacing Bill Courtney, who was fired last month, in the position.

Earl became associate head coach in 2015 and had been an assistant under two head coaches for the past nine seasons at Princeton, which he graduated from in 1999. According to Princeton Athletics, Earl’s Ivy League peers voted him as the league’s top assistant coach in a November 2010 FoxSports.com poll, and Earl served another five years as assistant under Mitch Henderson, who was promoted to head coach following Princeton’s 2010-11 Ivy League Championship under then-head coach Sydney Johnson.

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Who will be Cornell’s next head coach?

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With the firing of Bill Courtney, Cornell will begin a national search for a new head men’s basketball coach.  Who might be targets for the Big Red search committee?  Can the past help decide the future?

Here is a list of the Cornell coaches from the last 40 years:
2010-11 through 2015-16: Bill Courtney (Graduate of Bucknell)
1st Head Coaching job
15 years as Division 1 Assistant and Associate Head Coach, including 8 seasons working under Jim Larranaga at George Mason
60-113 overall and 27-57 Ivy; No post-season appearances; Highest Ivy standing was 5th place
2000-01 through 2009-10: Steve Donahue (Ursinus)
1st Head Coaching job
12 years as college Assistant Coach, including 10 seasons working under Fran Dunphy at Penn
146-138 overall and 78-62 Ivy; 3 Ivy League titles; 3 post-season appearances, including a Sweet 16 run in 2009-10

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St. Joe's smothers Princeton, but there's still a silver lining for Tigers

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The Tigers suffered their second straight loss on the road against a talented St. Joe’s squad that, like Stony Brook, features a future NBA player in DeAndre Bembry. An AAU teammate of Spencer Weisz, Bembry led the Hawks in most categories, including a game-high 26 points. With his tall and very athletic frontcourt mates, he established a disruptive and intimidating presence around the basket, blocking a number of Tiger close-in looks, and affecting a number of others.

The final margin, 62-50, is somewhat skewed by the “march to the free throw line” tactic of the last two minutes. Make no mistake, however, St. Joe’s was clearly in control after the first five minutes.

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Princeton all-time moment No. 3: Pete Carril to the Hall of Fame

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We’re starting with Princeton because that’s where T.S. Eliot is from. “In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michael Bechtold…”

Princeton University was most fortunate that Peter J. Carril, a high school basketball star

from Bethlehem, Pa., decided to play for Lafayette and coach Butch van Breda Kolff. A decade and a half later, when VBK succumbed to the lure of Hollywood’s bright lights, his diminutive protégé was installed as his successor after only one season of college coaching at Lehigh in his hometown.

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Princeton all-time moment No. 4: 1997-98 Ivy champions

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We’re starting with Princeton because that’s where Joseph Stalin’s daughter defected to. In Soviet Russia as in the United States, Princeton offense runs you!

Bill Carmody, an honorary member of the Class of 1975, joined Pete Carril’s staff in 1982. He spent the next 14 productive and mostly glorious seasons watching and learning. When Carril decided to retire after winning his final Ivy title on a heart-stopping three pointer by Sydney Johnson in a playoff against Penn (who else?), he made it known that no one was better qualified to succeed him than Bill Carmody.

Bill’s all too-brief four year tenure as head coach was among the most dominant periods ever in the long history of Tiger hoops. His overall record was 92-25. In the Ivy League he was 50-6, including a remarkable 28-0 in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

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Princeton all-time moment No. 10 – The Comeback

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We’re starting with Princeton because that’s where Hoagie Haven is.

10. THE COMEBACK, FEBRUARY 9, 1999

To most observers, Ivy League basketball in the 20th century was not much more than an annual ritual the purpose of which was to crown either Penn or Princeton as champions. Naturally, the annual home and home series between these two combatants developed into the fiercest rivalry in collegiate basketball. None was more intense … and none was as much fun.

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