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“We could never be as good alone as we are together,” all-time leading scorer Ryan Wittman, said after Cornell’s memorable 2010 march to the Sweet 16. Reuniting its entire 2010 team, Cornell Sweet 16 will have to rely on that sense of togetherness (not to mention its talent and depth) to prevail in its opening round match-up against the stacked Illinois Hoopville Warriors. With a roster of current and former pros, including Euroleaguers, D-Leaguers, and an ex-NBA player, Hoopville is loaded at the guard position but without a true center. Jeff Foote, the 7 foot captain of the 2010 squad stands 3 inches above the tallest Warrior, giving Cornell a scoring and rebounding advantage down low that the Chicago-based team will have trouble matching. Expect an interesting contrast in styles in this match-up, with Cornell working the inside-outside game and Hoopville looking to get up and down the court.
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Syracuse invites Colgate and Cornell to the Carrier Dome to be neighborly. Jim Boeheim said he prefers to keep those games on his schedule. In different years, those games impact the Orange RPI in different ways. When Cornell made its big run in the NCAA Tournament in 2010, it helped. Last year, when the Big Red went 2-26, it hurt.
Wellman's extensive scouting on potential opponents aids the Orange in its quest to strike an RPI balance. He analyzes teams that express interest in playing SU to determine whether those opponents would offer the Orange a proper schedule fit.
"Some of the teams, we want to know how good they're going to be. Did they go to the postseason last year? How many starters are returning? What was their RPI last year? They're not determining factors, but they are things we like to know," Wellman said. "For example, if you're going to play a team that last year had an RPI in the 300s, then you'd like to balance it out with — whether it's a guaranteed (buy) game or a home-and-home with a team in the top 10 last year. You want to have a balanced schedule."
Boeheim said he "tries to keep away from the 300s" and schedule teams that reside mostly in the 100 to 200 RPI range.
"It's helped us those years when Colgate and Cornell were good. It helped our RPI numbers," Boeheim said. "But we've always played them. So we suffer a little bit on the RPI when they're down. But the (NCAA Selection) Committee mostly looks now at 'Who did you play that was good and did you beat those teams?' If you don't beat any of those teams, then you're in trouble anyway."
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And Boeheim said the buy games with teams like Colgate and Cornell are generally more lucrative than home-and-home series with a nationally-recognized brand like Arizona because of the revenue SU generates from its home dates.
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Cornell Sweet SixteenThe group that led Cornell to its first tournament victory in school history is getting the band back together in hopes of earning the $500,000 prize. Will their team chemistry allow them to make up for a lack of talent?
- Ryan Whittman (Cornell/NBDL)
- Jeff Foote (Cornell/NBA)
- Louis Dale (Cornell/Euro)
- Jon Jaques (Cornell)
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The Ivy League is more talented than when he played, Allen says. The teams don't award athletic scholarships but now have more freedom to pull in recruits across the country with more loose rules on academic aid. The promise of a prestigious degree helps, too.Cornell ruled the league for a few years and Harvard, under former Michigan coach Tommy Amaker, has won three titles and posted NCAA victories in back-to-back seasons.Meantime, Penn has only won more than 13 games once in the past seven years. The Quakers erased the buzz from a 20-13 record in 2011-2012 with back-to-back 20-loss seasons. Along the way, the team has become an afterthought in basketball-crazed Philadelphia."Other (Ivy League) programs have stepped their pursuit up, just in terms of realizing basketball can add value to their brand," Allen said. "We're in the process of trying to maintain some consistency in terms of putting a product out there that so many people in the Penn community are used to seeing."
Highest No. 1: Cornell comeback
Dempsey walked towards the media after Binghamton’s 89-79 win over Cornell on Nov. 13, winked at us and said, “Piece of cake.” We all laughed because just moments earlier the Bearcats were on the verge of a blowout loss.
Cornell led, 61-42, with 12:21 left. The Bearcats dominated the rest of the way, converting 12 of their 17 field goal attempts and 16 of their 19 foul shots. They would finish the half with 59 points.
Beck scored a career-high 27 points, while Reed (25) and Madray (23) also eclipsed the 20-point mark. No other trio of Bearcats had ever scored 20 or more points in the same game since the program joined Division I in 2001-02.
Nat Graham is coming back to Penn basketball.
After playing two seasons under coach Fran Dunphy, Graham's career has come full circle, as he will now join Jerome Allen's staff as an assistant coach, confirmed by his twitter account.
Graham was a two-time letterwinner at Penn, alongside Allen and fellow assistant coach Ira Bowman, before finishing his playing career at the University of Western Ontario. Graham did graduate from Penn in 1997 before moving on to coaching.
The Penn alum was a coach under Steve Donahue during Cornell's run of Ivy League titles in the late 2000s before going with Donahue as an assistant at Boston College. Graham was the associate head coach of the Golden Eagles until the school cleaned house earlier in the spring.
Graham has already had a hand in recruiting, helping Penn land 2015 small forward Jule Brown. The Quakers still have to fill one assistant coach spot as Scott Pera left to join Mike Rhoades' staff at Rice while Jason Polykoff became the head coach at Division III Earlham College.
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Cornell Sweet 16 Basketball Team Invited To Play In The Basketball Tournament
ITHACA, N.Y. – Members of the Cornell men's basketball NCAA Sweet 16 squad have been chosen to play in The Basketball Tournament, a 32-team, winner-take-all tournament that starts on June 6, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pa. In all, 10 of the regulars from that team will reunite.
The Big Red reached new heights in 2009-10, winning the program's third straight Ivy League title en route to an Ivy League-record 29 wins and recording not only the program's first NCAA win, but a trip to the Sweet 16. Cornell closed the season ranked No. 17 in the national rankings, the program's first in 59 years, and set an Ivy record for 3-pointers in a season (326). The team also set single-season school records in points (2,545), field goals (913), assists (543) and blocked shots (127). The Big Red won the MSG Holiday Festival with a victory over St. John's, Cornell's first win over a Big East school since 1969 and captured a season-opening win at Alabama, the team's first win over a school from the Southeastern Conference since 1972. The Big Red shocked the college basketball world as a No. 12 seed, knocking out both fifth-seeded Temple and fourth-seeded Wisconsin by double figures to advance before losing to No. 1 seed Kentucky.
For his efforts, then-head coach Steve Donahue was named the Clair Bee Coach of the Year and the NABC District Coach of the Year. Senior Ryan Wittman graduated as the school's all-time scoring leader and was named the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year and an AP honorable mention All-American, while Jeff Foote was a first-team All-Ivy pick and the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. Louis Dale rounded out three Big Red players on the All-Ivy first team. All three players are expected to suit up for the reunited Sweet 16 team.
Along with Dale, Foote and Wittman, starters Jon Jaques (a current assistant for the Big Red), Alex Tyler and Chris Wroblewski will be joined by teammates Max Groebe, Aaron Osgood, Geoff Reeves and Pete Reynolds with Adam Wire serving as the team's coach.
The Basketball Tournament (TBT) is an open, single-elimination, winner-take-all basketball tournament for $500,000. A total of 32 teams will participate, with 24 having been chosen by fan voting and another eight (including Cornell) chosen as at-large selections by the TBT. The first four rounds will be played June 6-8 at Philadelphia University, with the winner-take-all final being played at a site to be determined by a social media vote on June 28.
When former Boston College coach Steve Donahue was fired on March 18, Nat Graham was left looking for a job for the first time in his coaching career.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to wait too long for the right spot to open up.
As an undergraduate, he spent most of his career at Penn, playing alongside current Quaker head coach Jerome Allen for his first two years. He would graduate from the school in 1997 after not playing as a senior, and then went to the University of Western Ontario to play two more seasons before a brief playing career.
As soon as he heard that Penn’s top assistant, Scott Pera, was headed to join Mike Rhodes’ new staff at Rice, Graham reached out to another Quaker assistant and former teammate, Ira Bowman. Before long, it became clear that Graham was headed back to Philadelphia to coach alongside his former teammates.
He’s expected to officially sign his contract on Thursday.
“I’m extremely excited, I think Philly’s a unique city in terms of its love of college basketball, with the Big 5,” Graham said. “Get to work daily in a place like the Palestra, it’s awesome, and to get to work with Jerome and Ira, who I got to play with sometimes–and watch play a lot–is great.”
Graham had come to BC by way of Cornell and the University of Toronto, where he spent one season as an assistant back in 2004-05 before heading to the Ivy League for five years under Donahue. He then moved with the head coach over to the Eagles for the 2010-11 season and spent four years there, including three as the associate head coach, before the entire staff was let go two months ago following an 8-24 season.
“I think [Donahue’s] as good as it gets in terms of an offensive coach, so I’ve certainly learned a lot from him,” Graham said. “I’ve coached the bigs since I’ve been with Coach Donahue, but I think I’ve got a good feel for the game and I’d like to think I’ve recruited well and I think I do a good job with evaluating guys.”
In addition to being very familiar with Philadelphia, Graham’s also comfortable in the Ancient Eight as a coach from his years with the Big Red. He was part of a staff that helped the program make the NCAA Tournament three straight years from 2008-10, including a Sweet 16 run in 2010 that led to Donahue’s hiring in the ACC.
“I think being at Cornell, I don’t know how they feel now, but when we were there, it was not a place that we could really beat out a lot of people for recruits, so I think I learned in recruiting to be a good evaluator and leave no stone unturned, so I think that benefitted me greatly,” he said. “Had to work harder just to find guys that we could win with, so I think that helped me. And I’ve got a good feel for what wins games in this league and what you need to win.”
He joins a Quaker program that’s had quite an eventful offseason. Two assistants have left–Pera left for Rice, while Jason Polykoff took the head coaching job at D-III Earlham (Ind.)–and a number of players have departed the team as well. This past season, the team went 8-20 overall, with just a 5-9 record in Ivy League play despite returning every play from the year before.
There’s still something to work with for this season, however. Juniors Tony Hicks and Darien Nelson-Henry are All-Ivy caliber players, and there’s plenty around them with talented youngsters like Matt Howard, Antonio Woods, Dylan Jones and others who should make contributions this year.
“Since my initial conversations with Ira and then with Jerome, I’ve become, I think, increasingly familiar with the roster and what’s kinda transpired and I like to think I have a feel for the pluses and minuses and what’s going on,” Graham said. “I basically watched, I would think, every game on Synergy, it’s so easy to watch stuff now. So I think I have a good feel for what the plan is with the team, offense and defense and each guy individually.”
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Cornell’s men’s basketball team was 2-26 this season with one of those victories against Division III Oberlin College, but coach Bill Courtney said “even though you’re bad, being on TV helps.”“We were able to hang tough with a good Bonnies team (81-57 loss), and kids saw it and think, ‘Hey, their record is bad, but they’re fighting and right there in the game,’ ” Courtney said. “And then Brown, we lose in overtime (81-75) so it’s like, ‘Yeah, their record stinks, but they’re not that bad.’ “That’s what kids saw,” he said, “so now when I go out and recruit juniors in high school, they know because they’ve seen us and they think, ‘They’re right there, they’re not that far off.’ ”Courtney might be right about the exposure for his struggling squad this past season, but generally speaking, the more competitive the teams being featured are, the better. This past men’s basketball season was historic for the Ivies, with five teams qualifying for the postseason... “It’s the best brand in the world, honestly, when you talk about a true student-athlete,” Courtney said. “And the more we can put that out there, the better.”
1. Loyola, MD (away)2. UMass-Lowell (home)3. Binghamton (away)4. Colgate (home)5. Siena (away)6. St. Peter's (home)7. Howard (home)8. Radford (away)9. Canisius (home)10. Buffalo (away) (Guarantee Game)11. BCS Guarantee Game TBD (away)12. BCS Guarantee Game TBD (away)13. D-III Game TBD (home)14. Charleston Classic Game15. Charleston Classic Game16. Charleston Classic Game17-30. Fourteen Ivy League Games
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Senior Joe Portsmouth, a sport management major at Ithaca College, grew up with a love of sports that has translated into career-launching internships in the field. After graduation, he will go on to pursue a master’s degree in business administration this year — but sports will continue to be the front-runner.Graduating a year early this spring after an internship with the Baltimore Ravens last summer and the Cornell University men’s basketball team this year, Portsmouth has a GPA of 3.93 and was recently accepted into Northeastern University’s MBA program.Portsmouth, who is from White Plains, N.Y., entered the college as a sport media major. However, he said a negative writing experience with student media indicated this was not his calling. He then switched to sport management his second semester freshman year.“I have really enjoyed the last couple of years, and as a result, now I am going to graduate school to get my MBA and concentrate more on business,” he said.Though he does not play a sport at the college, last summer, Portsmouth interned with the Baltimore Ravens, where he and six other interns were responsible for directing fans who came to watch the football team practice. During his internship, he also interacted with some of the players while coordinating autograph signings for the fans.Portsmouth also interned with the Cornell men’s basketball team from the fall until March, when the season ended. He said he held administrative duties including filming games, keeping the scoreboard and helping out with practice drills.Dave Metzendorf ’13 — special assistant to Bill Courtney, head coach of the Cornell basketball team — was Portsmouth’s supervisor during this internship. He said although Portsmouth did not talk much, he always had purpose in his speech and was a hard worker.“Joe Portsmouth’s work ethic is off the charts,” Metzendorf said.Metzendorf also said Cornell basketball legend Jeff Foote tweeted in January thanking Portsmouth for helping him with basketball drills to get back in shape for the NBA Development League game, while Foote was recovering from back surgery.Portsmouth said he remembers Foote being very grateful for rebounding for him — one of the drills he helped Foote practice during training.“He was very appreciative for me coming down because he knew that I was there and I had a lot of office work to do,” Portsmouth said.Equipped with three years of experience and a passion for sports, Portsmouth said the person at Ithaca College who most inspired and helped him was his adviser, Annemarie Farrell, associate professor and chair of the Department of Sport Management and Media. Portsmouth said she has helped him in securing and searching for these internships and job opportunities.Farrell said via email the first thing that struck her about Portsmouth when she met him was his quiet nature, and she learned with time that he was reliable and well respected by his peers. She said when job recruiters at Cornell University came to her looking for an intern, she immediately thought of Portsmouth.“He is a wonderful representative of the college, and I can’t wait to see him succeed in the future,” she said. “After his first day at Cornell basketball, I received a call later that day that Joe was in the parking lot at 6 a.m., dressed very professionally waiting for the gym session to open up for early morning practice. They relayed to me they never had an intern show up 20 minutes early, sitting in the parking lot, ready to go.”Recalling other noteworthy incidents from his three years of college, Portsmouth said his fondest memories come from friendships.“If you look at [college] as if you are paying for just classes, I think you are going to look negatively at what you are getting from the experience,” he said. “But if you look at all the life experiences and the fun experiences that you do with your friends and all the people that you meet — the more you learn about life.”Portsmouth will be the first person in his family to graduate with a master’s degree. With a passion for sports and personal relationships, he said, he is graduating from the college with few regrets. He said his game plan is to have the right balance between work and play.“That’s one thing I have really emphasized this semester,” he said. “Whenever I had a decision between maybe doing an assignment a little early because I had the time to do it, or having fun and hanging out with my friends, I have always been choosing hanging out with my friends. I think this has been the most fun semester I have had so far.”
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