Cornell Women's Basketball Practice Photo

Shawn Gillen/Cornell Athletics

Women’s Basketball Outlook: Big Red Brings Intentionality to 2026-27

10/29/2026 9:00:00 AM | By: Shawn Gillen, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications

ITHACA, N.Y. — Ask Emily Garner, The Rebecca Quinn Morgan '60 Head Coach of Cornell Women's Basketball to describe her team in one word, and she doesn't hesitate.

"I think the word for us this year is intentional," Garner said at Ivy League Media Day.

"Every opportunity this team has been together, we are operating with a level of toughness, with a level of togetherness that we haven't seen from this group in the previous years," Garner added.

The Big Red took a step forward in 2025-26. It improved to 9-18 overall and 4-10 in Ivy League play after going 7-20 and 3-11 the year before. Now Cornell brings back 11 of the 13 players who saw the floor last season, a group that accounted for about 81 percent of the team's scoring, while adding five first-year's to the mix.

"We're deeper than we've ever been as a team," Garner said. "Each day we're able to challenge each other in a way that was a bit different than last year, in that there's depth at every position."

A NEW IDENTITY

The biggest departure is Emily Pape, who averaged 10.1 points and led the team with 54 3-pointers last season. Pape is now playing professionally overseas, and Garner isn't looking for one player to fill that role.

"We never replace players," Garner said. "Emily had a tremendous career and will go down in the record books as one of the best to come through our program. But the same way we don't replace her, we won't replace Rachel Kaus and Clarke Jackson next year, and so on and so forth. Our goal is to build different identities each and every year."

This year's identity starts with depth and versatility. Where Pape was the focal point on opponents' scouting reports, Garner sees several players who can stretch the floor. She also has more lineup options than a year ago.

"I think this year one of the biggest differences is we have a lot of targets on the scouting reports," Garner said. "We have the ability to play a bit smaller and a bit faster. We have the ability to play a little bit bigger in different spaces."

The roster is young beneath its veteran core, with five sophomores and five first-years. Garner credits the juniors and seniors for helping the newcomers learn the system and the demands of being an Ivy League student-athlete.

SENIOR LEADERSHIP

That veteran core is led by seniors Rachel Kaus and Clarke Jackson, two players Garner said "have stuck with this program."

Kaus led Cornell in scoring at 11.2 points per game last season and started all 27 games. For her final year, she worked on becoming more versatile at both ends of the floor.

"The next step from this offseason was just kind of being more versatile, being able to play inside out," Kaus said. "My mentality was just kind of get stronger, get faster and be the best player that I can be for this last year here at Cornell."

Jackson averaged 9.6 points and led the team with 136 rebounds while starting 26 games. She said her individual goals and the team's goals overlap.

"My main goal is just to improve little by little," Jackson said. "How can I better win this drill? How can I better win this practice? How can we as a group win the next game?"

The backcourt returns intact as well. Kelsey Langston started all 27 games at point guard and led the team with 89 assists, and Paige Engels added 75 assists with 21 starts. Audrey Chen gives Cornell another shooter after making 25 3-pointers at a 34.2 percent clip.

SHARING THE BALL

Garner said Cornell finished second in the Ivy League in assists last season, and the players see that unselfishness as the team's strength.

"Yeah, I was the leading scorer, but we have a lot of people who are right up there with me," Kaus said. "Anyone can have a great scoring game, and I think we're really diversified that way."

The Big Red also took a big jump from beyond the arc. Cornell made 152 3-pointers at a 31.8 percent clip last season, up from 91 makes at 25.9 percent in 2024-25. Garner said that spacing has opened up the rest of the offense, and the preseason focus has been adding tempo.

"We have the ability now to tempo push while still finding our shooters and still attacking the openings in the middle of the floor," Garner said. "It's a fun system to play in and to watch."

BUILT FOR CLOSE GAMES

Cornell was at its best when games were tight, going 4-1 in contests decided by five points or fewer. Jackson said the key was breaking the end of games into small pieces.

"When it comes to worrying about the entire game at once, especially in those intense moments when it's one or two points off, it can become very overwhelming," Jackson said. "We do this in practice often, where you have to score, then you get a stop, then you get a score."

Kaus pointed to trust, including in Langston running the offense late. "Our point guard Kelsey, she's great," Kaus said. "She's really smart. Just trusting each other, trusting that everyone's going to do their role."

That composure showed up in two Ivy road wins a season ago, 67-60 at Columbia on Jan. 3 and 62-58 at Penn on Jan. 30. Garner said those games showed her players what they can be.

"It gave us the confidence of who we can be," Garner said. "Both of them were games where we executed at a very high level." With nearly the whole roster back, she added, "They experienced it. They see where we can go."

A TEST RIGHT AWAY

Cornell opens the season Monday, Nov. 2, at UConn at 5 p.m. on Peacock. The Big Red then hosts Fredonia in its home opener on Thursday, Nov. 5, before visiting Syracuse of the ACC on Sunday, Nov. 8.

Garner said the UConn game came from the same thinking as last season's trip to Stanford, which she believes helped prepare the team for Ivy play.

"Everybody has said, 'Why UConn to open up?' And we're kind of like, why not?" Garner said. "The mentality was, let's go play a team that we know is going to expose our weaknesses early. Let's test our adversity early. If the first game feels like that, hopefully everything else feels easier from there."

Kaus called the trip to Storrs a great opportunity for the program. Jackson said that kind of challenge is why players choose Cornell.

"You come play Division I college basketball at an Ivy League school to have a challenge," Jackson said. "You play Division I basketball to play good teams, and so that's what we're doing."

The non-conference slate also includes road games at UAlbany, Loyola Maryland, Siena, Niagara, Monmouth and Buffalo, plus home dates with Canisius, Mercyhurst, Wagner, Le Moyne, St. Bonaventure and New Paltz. Ivy play begins Jan. 3 against Columbia at Newman Arena, and the regular season closes March 6 at Dartmouth. Cornell plays 14 of its 29 games at home.

CHASING THE TOURNAMENT

The Ivy League Tournament came to Cornell last March, and the players watched it up close. Both seniors said that experience sharpened their goal for this season.

"I think seeing it in person really puts into perspective the hunger that we have to be there this year," Kaus said.

Jackson said it also showed the team what the environment demands. "It gave us perspective on how to handle the situation, how to handle the amount of fans and just really the intensity of the environment," she said. "We understand how intense the environment is, and then just practice like that every day with that in mind."

Cornell is comfortable in the underdog role, and the road wins at Columbia and Penn are proof of what it can do in it.

"On paper we're the underdogs, but we have that mentality going into every game that we're going to play Cornell basketball," Kaus said. "We're going to play for each other, and we're going to do what we're good at. I think those games were a testament of what we can do and what we will do this year."

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