Ithaca, N.Y. — There has been a pecking order in the Ivy League.
For years, for decades even, teams like Princeton and Penn and more recently Harvard and Yale, have determined the Ancient Eight’s basketball fate.
The Tigers, last year’s Ivy League representative because they won the league tournament, beat Arizona and Missouri on their way to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Princeton, at 7-0, is receiving votes and gaining steam in the AP Top 25 poll this season.
Cornell coach Brian Earl said Yale might be better. Penn has already knocked off Villanova. Tommy Amaker’s Harvard group is expected to finish among the top half of the Ivy League this season.
So when Earl pondered ways to ascend from the middle of the Ivy pack, he eventually envisioned a bold new strategy to separate the Big Red from every other team in that conference.
Conceived during the Covid shutdown, Cornell would play fast. The Big Red would play essentially everybody on its bench to keep players fresh through the full-court presses and the breakneck pace.
This would be Cornell’s new calling card.
It’s been a couple seasons since Earl’s Cornell reinvention. And still, sticking to the strategy makes for some sleepless nights.
“It’s stressful,” Earl said from his office last week, after the Big Red disposed of Monmouth 91-87. “Coming off last night, these games are just tight at the end. We play in such a way where we’re up 10, some things happen and 40 seconds later, we’re up 3. Its very roller-coastery. I’m still not used to it. That’s not my personality.”
But Earl wants to win. So he is willing to gamble a bit, to roll the dice that Cornell can parlay its unique style into a run at the Ivy big boys.
Cornell is 7-1 this season, its win on the road at Fordham its biggest achievement. For two straight years, it has qualified for the four-team Ivy League Tournament that determines which program represents the league in the NCAA Tournament.
Earl, the 1999 Ivy League player…
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