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Cornell First Team to Dance for Third Straight Year
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Courtesy: Cornell Athletic Communications
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- For the third consecutive season, the
Cornell men's basketball team made it through the 14-game Ivy League tournament
as the conference's top team. This time, a wave of 3-pointers by the Big Red
washed out Brown, 95-76, in an offensive clinic on Friday evening at the Pizzitola
Sports Center. Cornell tied an Ivy League record and set a school mark with
20 3-pointers to improve to 26-4 (12-1) and become the first school to earn
an NCAA tournament bid for the third consecutive season.
Senior Jon Jaques tied his career high with 20 points and made 6-of-8 3-pointers,
one of four Cornell players to hit at least four triples. The 20 makes surpassed
the school record of 18 set last season against Ursinus, and matched the Ivy
record of 20 by Princeton also against Ursinus during the 2002-03 campaign.
All five starters were in double figures, with Louis Dale adding 18 points,
eight assists and zero turnovers. Ryan Wittman added 16 points, grabbed seven
rebounds, dished off five assists and had a block and a steal. Rounding out
the double figure scorers were Chris Wroblewski and Jeff Foote with 14 points
apiece. Both Errick Peck and Alex Tyler chipped in five points apiece. Cornell
shot 57 percent overall from the floor, had 22 assists and just eight turnovers,
and limited the Bears to 30 percent shooting after halftime to run away with
the victory.
Brown's Peter Sullivan posted 23 points, while Garrett Leffelman notched 16
and Adrian Williams posted 13 off the bench. The Bears shot 59 percent from
the floor in the first 20 minutes and turned the ball over just six times in
the game, but couldn't weather Cornell's 3-point attack. Senior Matt Mullery
had 10 points, five rebounds and three assists in 23 foul-plagued minutes for
the All-Ivy center.
In a shootout of a first half, Cornell bult an 11-point lead 47-36 on the strength
of an 11-of-13 start from 3-point range, but the Bears got right back in it,
cutting the lead to 51-47 at the break. Wittman scored a team-best 13 points,
grabbed four rebounds, dished out three assists and had a block, while Dale
notched eight points and five assists. Cornell ended the half 11-of-16 from
deep (69 percent), while the Bears made 59 percent of its shots overall. Peter
Sullivan made 6-of-7 shots en route to 15 points at the break. The two teams
combined to shoot 58 percent from the field and 68 percent from 3-point range,
while totalling 21 assists and just eight turnovers.
The hot shooting continued as the Big Red made four more 3-pointers early in
the second half to buld the lead back to double figures. The last of the bombs,
another by Wittman, made it 68-53 with 13 minutes to play. Cornell tied the
record on the second of consecutive 3-pointers just 44 seconds apart that extended
the lead to 78-61, giving the squad 18 treys with nine minutes remaining. The
Big Red tied the Ivy record with his last trey of the game when Dale connected
from beyond the arc with 3:40 remaining.
As the clock ticked away, Cornell quietly celebrated with the reserves in the
game and ran to the locker room, only to be summoned back to the court for a
trophy presentation. Though the celebration was markedly quiet with more to
accomplish in the coming weeks, the team did douse head coach Steve Donahue
in the locker room with a bucket of water before focusing back on its regular
season finale against Yale.
The Big Red will return to action tomorrow when it faces the Bulldogs at 7 p.m.
at the John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn.
