Game notes supplement vs. Princeton
Game Information
Game #30: Princeton at Cornell
Tip off: Saturday, March 7, at 7:00 p.m.
Site: Newman Arena (4,473), Ithaca, N.Y.
2008-09 Records: Princeton (12-13, 7-5 Ivy League); Cornell (20-9, 10-3 Ivy League)
Series Record: Princeton leads 134-75
Last Meeting: Princeton won 61-41, February 6, 2009 in Princeton, N.J.
Head Coach Steve Donahue
Cornell head coach Steve Donahue is in his ninth season at Cornell (116-132, .468) ... Donahue became the fourth Robert E. Gallagher '44 Coach of Men's Basketball at Cornell on Sept. 6, 2000.
ITHACA, N.Y. — A night after capturing its second straight Ivy League title and the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, the Cornell men's basketball team will still have plenty to play for 24 hours later when Princeton comes to town on Saturday, March 7 at 7 p.m. Barry Leonard will again provide the call locally on 1160 ESPN Radio as well as part of the RedCast subscription service. Live video of the game will also be available on RedCast.
Besides the pride of not wanting to be swept by its Ancient Eight rival and close out the regular season with momentum, the Big Red will want to send the senior class out with a victory in their final home game. The group consisting of Jason Battle, Khaliq Gant, Adam Gore, Brian Kreefer and Conor Mullen have been a part of teams that have won consecutive Ivy League championships and posted a 39-11 record at Newman Arena, including an active school-record 20-game win streak in Ithaca.
Cornell celebrated its title on Friday night, becoming the first team into the 2009 NCAA tournament with its 83-59 victory over Penn coupled with the Tigers' 58-44 defeat at the hands of Columbia. Junior Ryan Wittman bolstered his Ivy League Player of the Year candidacy with 25 points, including six killer 3-pointers, as the Big Red shot 76 percent as a team after halftime to coast to the victory.
ABOUT PRINCETON: Despite Friday's loss that eliminated the Tigers from the Ivy League race, second-year head coach Sydney Johnson and Princeton will look to complete a season sweep of the Big Red and have its sights set on a second-place Ivy league finish after being predicted to finish last in the preseason poll. Princeton enters the game with a 12-13 record overall (7-5 Ivy) and already own a 20-point win over the Big Red earlier this season at Jadwin Gymnasium. Freshman Douglas Davis (12.3 ppg.) and sophomore Dan Mavraides (10.2 ppg.) are scoring double figures for Princeton, which is surrendering just 57.2 points per game on .396 shooting. Pawel Buczak (7.5 ppg., 4.1 rpg.) paces the team in rebounding. Johnson's team has already surpassed last season's win totals overall (7) and in Ivy League play (3). He has an 18-36 record in his two seasons as a head coach.
SENIOR DAY: Cornell will honor the contributions of five seniors to the program in a pregame ceremony. The class of Jason Battle, Khaliq Gant, Adam Gore, Brian Kreefer and Conor Mullen have helped the Big Red to a pair of Ivy League championship and NCAA tournament appearances, a 71-42 overall record and a 41-14 mark in Ancient Eight action. The class has accumulated a combined 1494 points, 589 rebounds, 291 assists and 145 steals in their 367 appearances, including 104 starts.
FIRST TO THE DANCE: For the second straight year, the Cornell men's basketball team is the first Division I team, men's or women's, to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament. Last night's 83-59 victory over Penn, coupled with Princeton's 58-44 loss at Columbia, secured Cornell's automatic bid to the "Big Dance."
FIRST TO 20-20: Last night's 83-59 win over Penn gave Cornell its third 20-win season in program history and its second straight for the first time in 110 years of Big Red basketball. The other 20-win seasons were in 1950-51 (20-5) and last season at 22-6.
AND YET ANOTHER FIRST: The Cornell basketball team is first team besides Penn or Princeton to win outright Ivy League championships in consecutive years.
PERFECT 10: Last night's victory over Penn helped Cornell claim its second consecutive 10-win season in Ivy League play, something it hadn't done since posting at least 10 conference victories three straight years, from 1964-65 to the 1966-67 seasons.
THREE FOR ALL: With its nine 3-pointers in the win over Penn, Cornell increased its total on the season as a team to 231, surpassing last season's record total of 228 when Ryan Wittman hit a trey with 8:14 left in the second half to extend Cornell's lead to 20 (63-43).
BACK TO BASICS: After winning 19 straight Ivy League contests, Cornell is 5-3 in its last eight contests thanks to road losses at Princeton, Yale and Harvard. The Big Red's average margin of victory in those five wins, however, is 19.4 points.
RARE COMPANY: Cornell extended its home win streak to 20 games, ranking it tied for third-longest in Division I with Pittsburgh. Utah State's streak is at 33 heading into today's contest against San Jose State. The longest active home win streak in the country is Kansas, which has a 40-game stretch it will put to the test against Texas today.
HOME WRECKERS: Cornell has been extremely impressive in its 12-0 start this season at Newman Arena, doing everything well. As a team, Cornell is outscoring foes by 19.6 points (82.4-62.8) while hitting at a .524 clip from the field and .474 from 3-point range. The team has a 1.5:1 assist:turnover ratio and is defending at an outstanding pace, limiting opponents to .389 shooting from the floor and .301 from 3-point range. Eight of the team's top 10 scorers are shooting at least 50 percent from the floor at home, with four hitting 58 percent or better.
BOARD GAMES: With appearances in tonight's game, five different players will establish a new school record for games played in a season. The previous mark of 29 during the 1989-90 season can be surpassed by Jeff Foote, Brian Kreefer, Alex Tyler, Ryan Wittman and Chris Wroblewski, all of whom have played 29 games with two contests remaining.
TIGER HUNTING: Despite the loss to Princeton in their first meeting, Cornell is having nearly unprecedented success against the Tigers of late, winning seven of the last nine contests. Prior to the stretch, Princeton had won 30-of-33 going back to 1987-88 and 63-of-75 heading all the way back to 1966-67.
ON THE BLOCK: Cornell enters Saturday night's game vs. Princeton with 117 blocked shots, matching the 1996-97 team for the all-time Cornell single-season record. With one more blocked shot, the Big Red would set a new team record.
TALL IVY: Over the last three seasons, Cornell's 33-8 record in the best among Ivy League teams in conference action. Penn, who claimed the 2006-07 title, is second at 27-13, followed by Yale (25-16), Columbia (21-20) and Brown (19-22). Other Ivy teams include Dartmouth (14-27), Harvard (13-28), and Princeton (12-28).
TREY BIEN: The Big Red has hit at least one 3-pointer in 562 straight games entering the Princeton contest. Cornell surpassed the 500-game plateau when the Big Red connected on six treys at Princeton on Feb. 16, 2007. The last time Cornell did not hit a 3-pointer was against Denison in the 1988-89 season opener (0-for-2). Since the 3-point shot came into effect in NCAA play during the 1986-87 season, Cornell has hit at least one shot behind the arc in 613 of 617 games, connecting on 3,611 treys, an average of 5.85 per game. The Big Red has hit a 3-pointer in all 248 games coached by Steve Donahue.
WITTMAN CLIMBS UP IVY TREY CHART: Two weeks after junior Ryan Wittman set the school's career record for 3-pointers, he jumped to second on the Ivy League's list in the win at Dartmouth. Wittman hit four 3-pointers as part of a 20-point effort, ending his night with 254 career treys. That total surpassed Penn's Tim Begley (253, 2001-05), and now sits behind only conference record holder Brian Earl of Princeton (281, 1995-99). He has since improved on his total of 263, just 18 shy of Earl's mark.
THE BIG 5-0-0: Junior Ryan Wittman became the fifth player in school history to record 500 points in a season with his big 24-point effort in the loss at Harvard. Now with 542 points in 29 games, he sits behind only Mike Davis (557 in 1977-78), Chuck Rolles (553 in 1955-56) and Ka'Ron Barnes (544 in 2003-04). John Bajusz, the school's career scoring leader, scored 505 points in 1986-87. Wittman needs 16 points to break the school's single-season record.
MORE ON WITT: Junior Ryan Wittman is currently in second place on the single-season 3-pointers list with 92 heading into the contest vs. Princeton. He trails only ... Ryan Wittman. As a freshman, Wittman made 93 3-pointers in 2006-07. He now holds three of the top five season efforts at Cornell.
WROBO HOT: Since the beginning of Ivy League play, freshman Chris Wroblewski has shown to be one of the Ancient Eight's top rookies, averaging 7.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 0.8 steals per game while shooting 45 percent from the floor and a scorching 50 percent from 3-point range (20-of-40).
NEXT UP: With the regular season completed, Cornell will await its NCAA tournament fate that will be announced on Sunday, March 15 at 6 p.m. on CBS.
