2009-10 - Ivy League Champion (29-5, 13-1 Ivy)
3/19/2010 vs. #12 (5) Temple (Veternas Arena, Jacksonville, Fla.) W 78-65
RECAP I BOX SCORE I GALLERY
Entering the 2009-10 season, the vaunted senior class had one goal it hadn’t reached and desperately wanted to secure its place among the all-time Ivy League dynasties - advance in the NCAA tournament. After Cornell’s 78-65 victory over No. 5 seed Temple in the East Regional first round, all that remained was advancing as far as it possibly could. Cornell dominated the backboards (30-20), shot 56 percent from the field and scored at a season-high clip against the Owls in capturing the program’s first-ever postseason basketball win and first NCAA tourney victory by an Ivy school since Princeton defeated UNLV during the 1997-98 campaign. The Big Red’s big three of Louis Dale (21 points, seven assists), Ryan Wittman (20 points, five rebounds) and Jeff Foote (16 points, seven rebounds) controlled the game and the 12th-seeded Big Red took advantage of 11 turnovers by Temple to score 18 points off of them.
3/21/2010 vs. #16 (4) Wisconsin (Veternas Arena, Jacksonville, Fla.) W 87-69
RECAP I BOX SCORE I GALLERY
For the first time since 1979, an Ivy League team went dancing into the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. For the first time ever, that team’s name was Cornell. Playing arguably its best all-around game of the season, the Big Red led from wire-to-wire and dominated No. 4 seed Wisconsin 87-69. The Big Red set an Ivy League record for wins in a season in improving to 29-4, while the Badgers saw their season end with a 24-9 record. Against one of the nation’s stoutest defenses, the Big Red shot 61 percent from the floor and made 53 percent from beyond the arc (8-of-15), scoring the most points of the season against Wisconsin. Senior Louis Dale scored a career-high 26 points and classmate Ryan Wittman chipped in with 24. Lost in the celebration was that Wittman became the fifth player in conference history to surpass 2,000 career points. He ended the night with 2,018 points. Both Jeff Foote and Chris Wroblewski scored 12 points in the victory.
3/25/2010 vs. #2 (1) Kentucky (The Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.) L 49-67
RECAP I BOX SCORE I GALLERY
The magical run through the 2010 NCAA tournament came to an end for the Cornell men’s basketball team at the Carrier Dome, falling to top-seeded Kentucky, 62-45. Cornell trailed by 16 points at halftime and by as many as 17 in the second half before whittling the deficit down to six points before the Wildcats put the game away down the stretch. Seniors Louis Dale and Ryan Wittman led the way for the Big Red on the night, with Dale leading all scorers with 17 points. Wittman added 10 and fellow senior Jeff Foote had eight points and six rebounds. For Kentucky, DeMarcus Cousins had 16 points with Eric Bledsoe adding 12 points. Patrick Patterson had nine points and 12 rebounds for the Wildcats, with freshman phenom John Wall collecting eight points, eight assists and seven rebounds.
