The Cornell men's basketball team could earn a No. 11 or No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which begins March 18, according to a prominent analyst.
After clinching the Ivy League Championship with a 95-76 win over Brown on Friday, the Big Red finished the season with a 27-4 record overall and a 13-1 mark against Ivy foes, but that single conference blemish may come back to haunt them. ESPN college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi told Bloomberg newswire that the 79-64 loss to a lousy Penn squad on Feb. 12 likely cost Cornell a shot at a single-digit seed.
Only three Ivy teams have won their opening round game in the past 25 years — Penn in 1994 and Princeton in 1996 and 1998. Cornell will learn its opening-round matchup when the selections are announced Sunday evening, but the Big Red did get recognition in the interim.
Senior forward Ryan Wittman was named to the United States Basketball Writers Association All-District II team. Ten players were selected from mid-Atlantic Division Ischools, eight of them from the elite Big East Conference.
On the women's side, Princeton completed an undefeated season in the Ivy League toearn its first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Three ECAC teams take on field in women's NCAA Ice Hockey Championship
Three ECAC Hockey teams — league champion Cornell, Clarkson and Harvard — will be among the eight squads competing for the 10th National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship. No. 4 seed Harvard will host Cornell on Friday, while Clarkson travels to face the No. 3 seed Minnesota Golden Gophers on Saturday.
No. 1 seed Mercyhurst hosts Boston University and No. 2 seed Minnesota-Duluth hosts New Hampshire on Saturday. The winners will advance to the Frozen Four at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis. The semifinals will be played on March 19 and the championship game on March 21. Harvard and Cornell each boast five all-Ivy selections.
ECAC quarterfinal matchups face off starting Friday
The ECAC Hockey men's quarterfinals begin Friday, as the top four teams come off a bye week to face the four opening-round winners in best-of-three series. No. 11 Brown will travel to New Haven to face regular-season champion Yale. The Bulldogs prepared for the matchup by taking Monday off to try curling, the obscure Olympic ice sport, according to Yale Sports Information.
No. 2 seed Cornell hosts No. 9 Harvard, No. 3 Union hosts No. 7 Quinnipiac and No. 4 Colgate hosts No. 5 St. Lawrence this weekend.
Harvard dominates squash championships
Harvard swept the College Squash Association Individual Championships on Sunday, taking "A" Division titles on both the men's and women's sides.
Senior Colin West swept Princeton's Todd Harrity in the finals, 11-9, 13-11, 11-1. Freshman Laura Gemmell beat Trinity's Pamela Hathaway in a tense final, 11-7, 5-11, 13-15, 11-8, 11-9.
