Having lived in Ithaca for over 15 years & following Cornell basketball since I was 10, this news is almost impossible to believe.   The last time I attended a Cornell basketball game was in 1990 when Cornell hosted North Carolina in Ithaca.  They lost 108-64.  And I think North Carolina pulled their starters at halftime.   Cornell hasn’t had a competitive basketball program in decades.  They haven’t been able to compete in the Ivy League, let alone the national stage.

But over the last 3 years they’ve built a team around Louis Dale, Jeff Foote, and Ryan Wittman (picture above).  After making it to the NCAA tournament the last 2 years, they are now putting together a miracle season.  Miracle as far as an Ivy League team with no scholarships goes.  This year they held a lead against the Kansas Jayhawks, the #1 team in the country, until the last minute of play.  And after beating Harvard by 36 points this weekend, today they were voted one of the top 25 teams in the country by the ESPN/USA today coaches poll.

Cornell basketball has been a joke and afterthought for so many years that I can barely comprehend this.  I had to document this moment on the blog because I want to remember 20 years from now that this really happened.   I can’t imagine I’ll see it again in my lifetime.  So when my son is 10, and we’re attending a game at Newman Arena, I’ll probably need this blog in order to prove it.  To prove that in the year 2010, our Cornell basketball team was one of the best in the country.  Go Big Red!

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