STF Fan Rant: Cornell Commands the Ivy League

by Max Wasserman from WVBR Radio.

It’s a weird feeling when your school’s basketball team suddenly becomes hot. Granted, Cornell is far from breaking into the “Also Receiving Votes” of any top 25 (or even top 75) poll. However, everything is relative, and 6-0 in the Ivy League, two games ahead of the second place team, qualifies as blowing up. Cornell basketball is suddenly the hottest thing in town. Getting tickets to last weekend’s home games against Princeton and Penn was harder than trying to get through an entire episode of Grey’s Anatomy without removing your eyes with your car keys. Due to the small size of Newman Arena and the Cornell ticket office being unaccustomed to basketball being popular, I couldn’t get a ticket initially. I was lucky enough to find someone willing to sell their tickets for ten bucks each, more than three times face value for students. Of course, where I come from (DC), that’s a major bargain.

But there are both positives and negatives to the sudden success and subsequent popularity of basketball at a school not known for it. For one thing, still not everyone is aware of the Big Red’s recent winning ways. The other day, I was describing the Penn game to a self-described sports fan. However, it took him three minutes to realize that I was talking about basketball and not hockey (Cornell’s historically most successful and popular sport). Of course, it’s hard to blame anyone for not paying attention. Cornell hasn’t won the Ivy League title since 1987-88 season, the last non-“P” team to do so. That would be the Big Red’s only Ivy League basketball title as well. And other than hockey, few Cornell sports are popular with students. Just two years ago, admission to men’s basketball games was free!

But even for those that are following the team, most are not accustomed to the ways of college basketball fanhood. For the Penn game, someone from the athletic department (I’m guessing) printed out a cheer sheet for students to use. After one glance at the recommended cheers, it was clear that whoever wrote it has seen less college basketball than Ray Charles. The sheet told students to put up only one finger during Cornell free throws. Fortunately, most everyone at the game knew enough to do the traditional “spirit finger” motion. The only reason to hold up one finger is to flick off the moron who wrote up that cheer sheet. Still, the students are not used to college basketball cheering yet. While Penn was cutting Cornell’s lead from 13 to 2 in the span of two minutes late in the second quarter, the crowd was relatively quiet. It took exuberant hand motions from Big Red coach Steve Donahue to get the students re-energized and spur Cornell to extend the lead back.

Of course, Cornell sports fans should have some time in the coming years to grow accustomed to the ways of college basketball. After all, this Big Red team is young. Their two main weapons, point guard Louis Dale (13.5 ppg, leads the country in FT% at 95%) and shooting guard Ryan Wittman (15.7 ppg, 51% 3-pt FG) are both sophomores. The team also includes junior guard Adam Gore (10.6 ppg, former Ivy League rookie of the year), sophomore forward Alex Tyler (53% FG, fourth on the team in minutes), and junior Jeff Foote (is 7 feet tall).

(Side note: While I think it’s totally awesome that we now have a player that is 7 feet tall, I’m sort of uncomfortable with the amount of attention going to Foote at this point. He’s only been on the team for half the season after transferring from St. Bonaventure, but he’s already one of, if not the, most talked-about players. The game against Princeton, only Cornell’s second home game since he joined the team, was Jeff Foote night. All this and he doesn’t even start yet! I’m concerned that this may affect team chemistry at some point, but that may just be me. I would just wait until he’s been on the team for more than half a season before I roll out the promotional nights.)

Anyway, with the Big Red lined up for future success, Cornell has a chance to become a major college basketball fan school in a couple years. Maybe after making the NCAA tournament a couple times, a game of theirs might finally be shown on TV. (This is not counting the YES network, the “Home of the Ivy League.” Of the 52 conference games played this year, YES will be broadcasting a staggering 3 of them. Of course, who can blame them for only showing three? After all, their schedule is packed with all the baseball games going on right now. But I digress) There’s a new king in the Ivy League world! You better make sure that carpet is big and red.