cornell

Three takeaways from the Brown men’s late triumph at Cornell

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Jaylan Gainey’s putback dunk with 3.5 seconds left resulted in an 81-80 Brown win at Cornell Saturday that has huge implications for the Ivy League Tournament race.

 

Here’s what to take away from the memorable finish for Brown (12-13, 4-6 Ivy) and Cornell (13-8, 5-5):

  1. The Ivy men’s race just got more interesting

Brown now has a fighting chance in the Ivy League Tournament race, even if Cornell still has the inside track. Bruno has a 22.3% shot of making the tourney after the win, still a far cry from the Big Red’s 68.7%, according to friend of Ivy Hoops Online Luke Benz’s analysis:

 

But three of Brown’s final four games are at home, while three of Cornell’s last four contests are on the road. Since the Bears and Big Red have split their season series, the next head-to-head tiebreaker would be each team’s record against the highest seed outside the tie. Brown has matchups with all three teams above it and Cornell in the Ivy standings – Princeton and Penn next weekend at home and at Yale in the season finale.

The Big Red hold this tiebreaker by virtue of their win over Princeton, but they’ve got only one more opportunity to strengthen that tiebreaker when they host Yale on Feb. 26.

The race for the No. 4 seed could go down to the wire.

2. Jaylan Gainey comes up big again

Gainey was KenPom’s game MVP for the second contest in a row, contributing 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting and nine rebounds, including five on the offensive end. Hopefully Gainey’s game-winner attracts more attention to the terrific campaign he’s had as a senior. Gainey leads the Ivy League in field goal percentage by a wide margin (67.1% to second-place Tosan Evbuomwan’s 53.7% for Princeton) and blocks by a similarly commanding distance (two per game versus second-place Isaiah Kelly’s 0.9 for Yale).

Gainey has become more assertive offensively as Ivy play has progressed, a trend that bodes well for the stretch run. Gainey has recorded five blocks in two of Brown’s last three games against Yale, and he’ll be key in Brown’s matchup at Yale that could give the Bears a potential tiebreaker in the scrum for the Ivy tourney’s No. 4 seed.

Even though Gainey was named Ivy Defensive Player of the Year in 2019-20, his stellar play anchoring the conference’s top scoring defense doesn’t get the plaudits it should.

3. Not cleaning the defensive boards cost Cornell 

The offensive rebound leading to Gainey’s game-winning putback was Brown’s 14th offensive board of the game. Cornell managed just four. The Big Red have been outrebounded on the offensive end by a combined margin of 35-16 in their last three losses.

That’s an especially troubling trend for Cornell given that it wants to push the tempo, having the third-quickest average possession length in the country per KenPom behind only Gonzaga and St. John’s. Also in the Ivy League’s bottom half in offensive rebound percentage are Cornell’s next two opponents, Dartmouth and Harvard, giving the Big Red a better opportunity to correct this issue in next weekend’s high-stakes New England road trip.

 

Penn men pull off a C-suite sweep to remain in second place

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Sophomore guard Jordan Dingle averaged 21 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in the team’s wins at Columbia and Cornell this weekend. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Facing a typical foul-heavy Ivy Saturday night game and a boisterous crowd in Newman Arena, the Penn men survived a furious rally to defeat Cornell, 73-68. Adding the hard-fought victory to Friday’s more comfortable 81-66 win at Columbia, the Quakers have now won four games in a row and remain in sole possession of second place.

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Princeton women roll over Cornell, 75-37

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Junior guard Grace Stone notched 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 24 minutes in Princeton’s 75-37 romp over Cornell at Jadwin Gym Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

The second meeting between the Tigers and the Big Red was a bigger blowout than the first. On Jan. 8, the Berube Brigade rolled over the Big Red in Ithaca, 65-41. This evening’s rematch at Jadwin Gym was a defensive tour de force for the Tigers as they held Cornell to 9.25 points per quarter while scoring 18.75 themselves.

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Five thoughts about the Ivy League men’s race

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Yale is well-positioned to live up to the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll’s prediction that it would finish atop the league standings, in no small part due to Ivy scoring leader Azar Swain. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

As we near the halfway mark of the 2022 Ivy League season, here are five thoughts about the state of the race for the men’s league title:

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Columbia women outlast Cornell, 57-46, for best start to Ivy play in program history

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After running out to a 24-point lead over the first 7:30 of the game, the Columbia women surprisingly found themselves in a battle with Cornell on Thursday night.  In a typically intense physical battle between the Empire State rivals, the Lions used the offense of Kitty Henderson and the rebounding of Kaitlyn Davis to come away with a 57-46 victory at Levien Gymnasium.

With the win, the Light Blue are 3-0 in league play (12-0 overall) for the first time in program history and remain tied with Princeton for first place.  For the Red, the defeat was their first of the year when holding an opponent to 60 points or less and they are now 1-3 in the conference (6-9 overall).

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Winter storm threat forces postponement of Columbia-Cornell contests as women’s game moves to Thursday

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ESPN was the first to report the postponement of Monday’s men’s and women’s Columbia-Cornell games on Sunday afternoon, but no reason was given and the changes had not been updated to the individual team’s websites.  A representative from Cornell Athletics informed Ivy Hoops Online that both contests would be postponed due to a winter storm expected to hit the northeast from Sunday night until Monday.

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