The video was a remake of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”, and features Cornell Basketball stars Jeff Foote, Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale, along with Cornell Hockey stars Colin Greening, Brendon Nash, and Joe Scali.

–

Check out the video here: http://www.slopemedia.org/television/cornell-campus-events/single-ladies/

Check out the various online articles here:

http://cornellbasketball.blogspot.com/2010/05/cornell-basketball-in-news-big-red-give.html

http://outofbounds.nbcsports.com/2010/05/post-494.html.php

http://www.casttv.com/video/761svf1/slope-media-single-ladies-duff-ball-2010-video

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Cornell-trio-fares-better-in-Big-Dance-than-on-t;_ylt=AmUKRwhq0_aaPXXnq46E105jVJJ4?urn=ncaab-240524

http://outsidetheboxscore.blogspot.com/2010/05/cornell-basketball-players-do-beyonces.html

http://www.tauntr.com/content/cornell-basketball-single-ladies-dance-video

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/the_sporting_blog/entry/view/65776/cornells_taking_this_cinderella_thing_a_little_too_seriously

http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/05/cornell-basketball-and-hockey-captains-demand-that-you-put-a-ring-on-it/

www.2010.duffball.org

Special Thanks To:

Stefanie Aquilina, Liz C., Louis Dale, Jeff Foote, Colin Grenning, Ashley Louise, Brendon Nash, Joe Scali, Ryan Wittman, Karen Williams- BASE Productions

Filmed & Edited By:

Tom Lee

In basketball people like to talk about the importance of the “Big Three.”  For the Celtics its Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.  For the Lakers its Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum.

In Ithaca there’s a “Big Three” too, except, well, one of them isn’t quite as big.  Alongside the seven-footer, Jeff Foote, and the NBA-sized wing, Ryan Wittman, is the 5-foot-11 inch Louis Dale.

It’s not only the physical stature category in which Dale doesn’t quite matchup with his fellow members of the exclusive club though.  When it comes to attention from the media and pro scouts, he isn’t getting the same love as Wittman and Foote; which is surprising given that Dale is the only one of the three to have been named the top player in the Ivy League (as a sophomore) and that he has as many appearances on the all-league first team as Wittman (2, Foote has none).

On Friday night in Cambridge, there were 14 NBA scouts in the building to watch a guard, a forward and a center.  It just so happened that the guard was Harvard’s Jeremy Lin rather than Dale.  Based on the play on the court though, you wouldn’t have known it.

Lauded as the ultimate all-around playmaker, Lin is known for being the only guy in the country last year to rank among the top 10 in his conference in every major statistical category.  But this weekend in Lavietis Pavilion, his versatility was one-upped by Dale.  While Lin seemingly disappeared for stretches of the game despite scoring 24 points in 36 minutes, Dale left his mark on every aspect of it.

In the first half, he was the distributor.  While Wittman poured on 16 points and Foote contributed a solid 9 in the opening period, Dale chipped in with a quiet 4 assists.  Whether it was the quick dribble hand-off in transition or a pass in the half court set, he was the ultimate set-up man.

As modest as any one else on the team, which says something if you’ve ever heard another member of the squad talk, Dale gave all the credit to his co-stars in the post-game.  Being the heady Cornell guy that Wittman is though, the senior forward still understands the importance of his point guard.  And with the same selfless attitude that has propelled Dale to the top of the league assist charts on the court, Wittman refused to take all the accolades after the win.

“Let me just say, Lou does all the work there.  It’s pretty easy to hit the open shot when Lou attracts all the defense.”

That may be a slight overstatement given that every team the Red faces tries to key in on Wittman and he still knocks down better than 40% from beyond the arc, but, point taken; the marksman appreciates the dimes.

In the second half Dale’s role morphed into part glass cleaner, part sharpshooter, part superman.  In one possession Dale provided a defensive rebound, 2 offensive boards and a backbreaking 3-pointer.  The following 2 trips down the court for the Red, all Dale did was knock down another pair of contested triples.

In the end Dale’s stat line read: 20 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds, while shooting an efficient 7 for 12 from the field and blazing 4 of 6 from deep.  Most importantly though, Dale played 32 minutes.  It was the fourth time in as many games that he’s logged 30+, a feat which he has matched only one other time in his career, all the way back in early February of his freshman year.

On Saturday night, Dale would have made it 5 in a row for the first time in his career if he had been needed, but the blowout win at Dartmouth allowed Cornell to give fans a glimpse of the future in guards Max Groebe and Miles Asafo-Adjei.

Over the last 5 games Dale is averaging 13.8 points, 4.2 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 steals, all right around his career averages.  While his stats merit a close look for all-league first team for the third year in a row, Dale’s most important new trait is the timeliness of his scoring.

In just the second game of the year, when Wittman shot a cold 1-8 at UMass and didn’t connect from beyond the arc en route to a career-low 4 points, Dale made up for it with a career-high 24 to lead the Big Red to victory.

In a barn-burner win at Bucknell, Dale scored 10 of his 12 points in the final 4 minutes of regulation and overtime.

After a 1-for-7 start against Davidson in Madison Square Garden, the senior point guard took the ball the length of the court for a layup as time expired to force overtime.  Wittman will be better remembered for a 30 foot buzzer-beater in the extra period, but it was Dale’s heroics that allowed for the Sports Center top 10 play to go down.

Arguably though, for each of Dale’s clutch performances this year there has been a matching let down.  A 4-point, 19-minute, foul out in a home loss to Seton Hall; a 3-point, 5-turnover meltdown at Syracuse; a foul plagued performance against Kansas in which he was one of several guards that allowed Sherron Collins to go off for a career-best 33 points.  In Cornell’s first 3 losses of the year Dale struggled while his  teammates were doing their best David impressions against the Goliaths of college basketball.

Dale’s major question mark over the past 2 years has been just that; can he compete on the biggest stage?

In Cornell’s first round NCAA tournament exits over the last 2 years, Dale has gone a combined 5-for-27 from the floor and 0-for-4 from deep for a grand total of 15 points.
With another weekend sweep for the Big Red and a stunning Princeton loss to Brown, Cornell finds itself alone atop the Ivy standings and looking more likely than ever to find their way back to the NCAA tournament.

Prognosticators from around the country have chimed in on the keys to the Red’s success if they go dancing.  Andy Katz of ESPN says “Foote is the reason Cornell can win in the NCAAs.”  Wittman has been likened to Stephen Curry on the Davidson squad that made it all the way to the Elite Eight.

Dale may not have the NBA size or talents of his two counterparts or the compelling backstory.  Foote’s often told crossing of paths with Khaliq Gant and Wittman’s son of a hoops legend biography are better stories for the telling than Dale’s Ivy League cliche.  After excelling in both the classroom and on the court in high school, he passed on what looked like a better basketball school, the University of Alabama – Birmingham, for a top-notch education at Cornell.  But Dale’s lack of a unique story and possible NBA future have nothing to do with his importance to the success of the Big Red down the stretch.

When the Red became the giant and Penn turned into the potential slayer in the national spotlight a week ago, it was Dale who tried to take the team on his back.  Despite fouling out, he scored 9 points over a crucial 6 minute stretch that got Cornell within striking distance.  Although the Red eventually fell, Dale was the only guy on the floor who never lost his aggressiveness.  In the three games since, he has iced a win over Princeton with a pair of free throws, stolen show in the second half in front of a standing room only crowd in Cambridge and provided 14 points on a torrid shooting night at Dartmouth.

It’s those types of performances that Cornell will need out of Dale if they want to advance in the tournament this time around.  And with the senior point guard flourishing on center stage during the regular season as of late, there’s reason to believe that this could be the year that Dale, along with the rest of the Big Three, keep the Big Red in the national spotlight for a little longer come March.

“We’re a good basketball team, but we did not play well. And Penn played terrific.”

Cornell head coach Steve Donahue kept it simple after dropping Friday night’s game.

Once Cornell lost in the Palestra all of the frills that had been following the program for the last month were suddenly gone. No perfect league record. No top 25. No high RPI. No low NCAA tournament seed, if any NCAA tournament at all.

And pretty quickly, the result of the first matchup of the weekend made Saturday night simple too. Win and you’re in the driver’s seat, lose and you need help to even make the tourney.

The Big Red took that attitude to the court at Princeton. In New Jersey, Cornell abandoned the high wire offensive act chalk full of powerful dunks atypical of an Ancient Eight group and gaudy 3-point shooting numbers ranking among the nations elite. Instead, they went back to the basics and played an intense, gutsy brand of basketball. The team that looked tense and hesitant in Philadelphia on Friday night was nowhere to be seen 24 hours later and 50 miles north.

The renewed toughness showed down the stretch when Ryan Wittman scored 7 points in the final 2 minutes and 14 seconds. The stabilizing confidence was evident when Louis Dale, who shot just 1 for 7 from the field, stepped to the free throw line with 22 seconds left and the Red clinging to quickly evaporating, 1 point lead, and knocked down a pair of free throws that were so pure that the net barely moved as the ball went through.

It was there from the start though, specifically, the starting lineup. Senior tri-captain Alex Tyler, who had opened the previous 19 games on the bench because of injuries and a lack of productivity, got the nod on Saturday night and played a season high 27 minutes. Tyler’s numbers were nothing special, his 6 points and 4 rebounds were almost identical to his career averages. But Alex Tyler being Alex Tyler seemed to be exactly what the Red were missing.

Don’t be mistaken, in Tyler’s absence his replacement, Jon Jaques, helped to take Cornell to the next level. Jaques’ 46% shooting from beyond the arc and ability to defend any position 1 through 5 bring to the Red something that Tyler never did in his 2 plus years as a starter. This year Jaques has been invaluable.

But Tyler brings a bulldog’s attitude and a constant hustle to the rotation that is essential in Ivy League play. There are only 8 teams in the conference; everyone plays each other twice every year; and nobody leaves early to go to the pros. As Donahue reiterates time and time again, the league games are the toughest part of the schedule because everyone else knows your tendencies and how to play you.

That’s how a 3-15 Penn team can beat a Cornell team that had spent the previous two weeks in the top 25. The Quakers doubled Foote more successfully than any other team that the Red had faced all year. They rotated well on the back side to shooters, forcing Cornell into just 34.5% shooting from deep. Penn extended their defense well beyond the arc and forced Dale to commit an uncharacteristic 4 turnovers. The defensive formula used to stop Cornell was more effective than those concocted by teams from the ultra-athletic and talented Big East, SEC and Atlantic 10.

In the league schedule, when facing teams that can neutralize each other’s strengths as well as Penn did to Cornell on Friday, games can often to come down to attitude and toughness. The hustle that Tyler provided in Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday filled that role; so much so that it almost went too far.

With just under 3 minutes left and Cornell owning a 2 point lead, Tyler got into a shoving match with Princeton’s Marcus Schroeder. The Tiger guard was likely to get a technical for instigating the scuffle, but Tyler’s chest bump thrown at the Schroeder prompted a double technical call instead. Rather than Cornell getting a pair of free throws and a key extra possession, Princeton took the ball and no free throws were awarded.

For a split second, it seemed that Tyler’s passionate play could cost the Red the game. The exchange could have initiated a 6 to 8 point swing. What may have been two points from the charity stripe and two or three more on the ensuing Cornell possession, could have easily morphed into a bucket on the other end for Princeton. Instead, the Red responded with the same passionate and inspired play that got Tyler into the mess, spurring a 5-1 run that proved to be the difference in the low scoring affair.

Despite the win at Princeton which propelled the Red back to the top of the league standings, Cornell’s final three weekends of the Ivy season will likely remain absent of the national craze following the team since early January. Without all of the hoopla, the picture for Cornell should be just as simple as it was following Friday night’s loss: the Red control their own destiny. And if they continue to play with the Alex Tyler attitude, they should hear their name called on Selection Sunday.

Interviewer: Jake Mastbaum

Editing: Jake Mastbaum

Filming: Sam Aleinikoff

“Don’t look up.” The age old sports adage is simple.  Don’t think about the significance of the game you’re playing.  For Cornell on Wednesday night it meant forget the 50 games in a row that Kansas had won at Phog Allen Field House, forget the NCAA Tournament implications, forget the fact that a win could catapult you into the Top 25 for the first time in school history.  Most of all though, forget the fact that you are playing the top team in the country and actually have the ability to win.  Because a split second of thinking about the magnitude of the moment, or “looking up,” is all Kansas would need to turn a great game into game over.

For forty minutes, in one of the toughest games the Jayhawks have played at home in 3 years, Cornell didn’t look up.  And with less than a minute to play on the court named for the inventor of the sport himself, the Big Red were part of what Head Coach Steve Donahue aptly called a “great college basketball game.”

A story line written for Hollywood seemed to be unfolding in Lawrence, Kansas.  Little-known Cornell had the top team in the nation on the ropes and was on the verge of snapping the longest home winning streak in college basketball.  Ryan Wittman’s shot to put the Big Red up 1 with less than thirty seconds to play didn’t fall though.  And an off balance trey to tie with 10 ticks left wouldn’t drop either.  It took the full 40 minutes for Kansas to remain unbeaten, but in the end the Jayhawks were able to avoid becoming the Ivy’s first top ranked victim in league history.

After the loss, Wittman shouldered some of the blame.  “I may have rushed that last shot and we may have been able to get something better later if I had not shot” the senior forward said.

It’s tough to blame anyone on the Red for falling short though.  Coming into the contest the knock on Cornell was its defense.  In that respect they answered the call, holding the second highest scoring team in the country more than 16 points below their season average.

Another question mark may have been on the boards.  But facing a center tabbed as a lottery pick in Cole Aldrich, and a pair of potential future NBA forwards in Marcus and Markieff Morris, Jeff Foote and Co. held their own on the glass.

In their first two losses of the season Cornell lost control of the game within the last minutes of the first half.  At Syracuse, a Wes Johnson layup gave the Orange a 6-point halftime lead that they would never relinquish.  Against Seton Hall, a Herb Pope 3-pointer gave the Pirates a 5-point lead at the break that the Red never cut into either.  At Allen Fieldhouse though, Cornell went on a run of its own to close the opening period up 3.

That’s not to say Cornell played a flawless game.  Far from it.  The Big Red turned the ball over 16 times, shot below their season averages from the field, beyond the arc and the charity stripe and allowed the First Team Preseason All-America point guard, Sherron Collins, a career best 33 points.

Still, in the course of an upset bid there tends to be a formula: unconscious shooting, limited turnovers and neutralizing the opponents athleticism.  In one of the toughest arenas in college basketball against the best team in country, Cornell threw that recipe out the window, and you have to applaud them for it.

From the opening tip they went right at the Jayhawks.  On the first two offensive possessions for the Big Red, they took it to the teeth of the Kansas defense, shot blocking machine, Cole Aldrich.  Both times Jeff Foote overpowered him and converted.  When Foote had to sit with two fouls, forwards Alex Tyler, Jon Jaques and Mark Coury made hustle plays and defended the Kansas bigs so well that in the nearly ten minutes Foote spent on the bench, Cornell saw no drop off.  Foote left the game with a 3-point lead.  When he returned to start the second half, the Red lead was also at 3.  From the beginning, Cornell set the tone and dictated the pace.  Even without their best shooting performance or an even-keeled ball handling night, for 35 minutes they simply outplayed the top team in the nation.

Undoubtedly, some Cornell fans will gripe about the home court, Big 12, officiating.  To some extent they may have a point.  A Geoff Reeves block from behind on Collins was called a foul with 3 minutes left.  Replays showed no contact.   A Foote block on Aldrich in the first half was clearly all-ball, but the 7 footer was whistled for his second foul.  With under a minute left, Foote made a tough layup over Aldrich.  The bucket counted but he was hit and arguably should have been at the line for a 3 point opportunity.  On the game, Cornell attempted just 14 free throws to Kansas’ 36.

Fans can dwell on it and blame the outcome on the officiating but Cornell won’t, another reason that you have to be impressed with this Big Red squad.  “I don’t necessarily agree with the second foul call, but it happened and you just have to move on” Foote said.  “You have to tip your hat to Kansas.  They found a way to win and that is why they are the number one team in the country.”

After the valiant effort, Kansas Head Coach Bill Self had to tip his hat to Cornell too.  Following the game he called the Red the top team Kansas had faced this season.  Better than California.  Better than UCLA.  Better than Michigan.  Better than Temple.  Better than Memphis.

Collins said it felt “like a tournament game.”  But even with the crowd, the near David vs. Goliath plot, the star power and the intensity, this loss for Cornell is nothing like a tournament loss.

The Red have to travel to South Dakota and then host Clarkson in the next 5 days.  In less than a week and a half, they open the Ivy campaign, which Donahue repeatedly says is the toughest part of their schedule.

Despite the worthy praise, the votes in the polls and the national publicity that Cornell will get in the coming days, the Big Red still can’t afford to “look up,” and I don’t expect them to.  Following a Christmas break chalk full of ESPN coverage on the heels of its first Big East win in 40 years, Cornell traveled to La Salle shorthanded and beat one of the top teams in the Atlantic 10.  I have no doubt that Coach Donahue will keep his team grounded again.

If he does, Cornell could be looking up at something much more tangible than just some media attention come season’s end.  They could be looking up at a Sweet 16 banner in the rafters of Newman Arena.

There is no such thing as a “bad win.”  A road win over a top 100 RPI team without your starting point guard (Louis Dale) or power forward (Alex Tyler) is certainly not a “bad win.”  But Cornell’s win on Tuesday night was no doubt an ugly win.

Jeff Foote’s two-rebound, foul-plagued performance was surely not pretty.  And a week after looking almost invincible, Jon Jaques was closer to invisible on the offensive end.

While the two standout performers from Cornell’s Holiday Festival championship struggled, Ryan Wittman was back to his usual antics.  The senior forward broke the all-time Cornell career scoring record, pushing his points total to 1,667, and also set a personal best with 34 on the night.

In the second half, Wittman scored more than half of the Red’s points, several of which came on “no, no, no…yes!” shots.  Once they went down though you had to remind yourself that a contested, twisting, off-balance shot, early in the possession is in fact more of a “yes, yes, yes” shot when leaving the hands of Ryan Wittman.

Even with Wittman doing much of the scoring, the Big Red got contributions from unexpected places as well.  Chris Wroblewski filled in nicely for Dale as the on-ball guard with 6 assists, more than double his season average.  Adam Wire came off the bench to lead Cornell with 9 rebounds.  Mark Coury pitched in with 5 points and 3 boards, all coming in the first half.  And after the Kentucky transfer picked up 3 fouls of his own, Freshman Josh Figini logged the first game action and points of his young career with a pair of free throws.

“I give a lot of credit to those minutes that we got,” Head Coach Steve Donahue said of Figini’s performance along with fellow reserves Andre Wilikins and Max Groebe. “They kept our lead and then some at the end of the first half, which I thought was huge.”

Following an ineffective first half spent mostly on the pine, Foote played 19 second half minutes, picking up just one foul and shooting an assertive 4-7 from the field.

On paper the game looked solid for Cornell.  And in college basketball a win is a win, especially when it is your third win over an Atlantic 10 opponent on the year.  Still, something was out of sync for the Big Red.

Even in the first half, as Cornell built an 11 point lead, the offense didn’t find its natural flow.  In the second period, the La Salle on-ball pressure caused costly turnovers in the open court.  Although Cornell only coughed the ball up 13 times, the Explorers were able to convert those into 21 points.

Cornell Head Coach, Steve Donahue says it after most games: Cornell needs to get better each day.  On Tuesday, the Big Red did not look like they had gotten any better, but rather, had taken a step back.  Still, for the fifth time in their last six games they were able to hold off a second half comeback bid to seal the victory.  This time it came without Louis Dale, against arguably the top mid-major squad they’ll play all year.  That in itself is a step forward.

Last year, with Dale injured the Red would often play solid first halves against tough opponents, but crumble against defensive pressure in the second period (see St. John’s, Siena, Indiana and Syracuse).  On Tuesday night, Cornell started to falter but was able to hold on.

“What I do like is that we’re figuring out ways to win games when not a lot is going right,” Donahue said.  “We lose two guys tonight.  We only go 12-for-18 on foul shots, which we usually ice pretty well, and a team carved us up pretty good for stretches in the second half, yet we still figure out a way to win on the road.”

Down the stretch with Cornell clinging to a 5 point lead, Chris Wroblewski, who had hit better than 93% of his free throws on the year, missed the front end of a 1-and-1.  Wittman cleaned up the mess though, knocking down all six of his free throws in the final 20 seconds to ice the game, the third of which pushed him past John Bajusz in the record books as the top scorer in Cornell Basketball history.

“We’ve been in a lot of close games and I think that’s made us a better basketball team,” Donahue said. “It’s just fun to coach a group of guys that don’t care how it gets done and play the right way.  Every single guy that comes in basically does what we ask and then some.”

Check out highlights from the Cornell Men’s Basketball team’s 2008-2009 Ivy League Championship season in this year’s official Cornell Men’s Basketball Recruiting Video.

Directly following the press conference, the Big Red suited up and took the floor for 40 minutes at Taco Bell Arena for their open practice for the media. Cornell ran on to the floor to the sound of an announcer saying, “And now, representing the Ivy League, Cornell University” and cheers from the Cornell fans in attendance.

It was a light shoot around for the Red. Cornell started with lay-up lines and moved to various shooting, passing, cutting, screening, and lay-up drills. The team seemed to start out a little slow, but the energy in the gym was definitely high. As time went on, more and more shots started to fall and you could really feel the enthusiasm of the Cornell players rise. The demeanor of the players and coaches seemed very similar to that of practices back in Ithaca. It was nice to see the team focused on the task at hand and not overwhelmed by the hype of the NCAA Tournament.

After the basic warm-up drills were complete, the Big Red moved to shooting drills. The team broke up into two squads.

Red
Dale
Gore
Foote
Kreefer
Reeves
Tyler
Wire
Wittman
Wroblewski

Grey
Battle
Hill
Jaques
Mullen
Osgood
Reynolds
Van Burck
Wilkins

The squads were on opposite ends of the floor about to compete in a shooting game. The teams had to shoot from five spots around the court, hitting seven shots from each spot and could not move to the next spot until all seven shots were drained from the previous location on the court. The red team won the competition by a hair, forcing the grey team to do push-ups at center court while the red watched.

The end of practice was very light. The team lined up under one basket and ran up, firing half court shots as the buzzer sounded. Energy was extremely high during this drill. It was almost tough to hear the buzzer over the sound of the Cornell players clapping. Half court shots were hit by senior Brian Kreefer and freshman Chris Wroblewski. This drill took the Red to the final two minutes of their open practice.

The final two minutes of practice were spent shooting free throws. The Red and Grey squads were separated, shooting on opposite baskets. After two minutes of foul shooting, the horn sounded for a final time and the Big Red ran off to the locker room to the sound of cheers and applauds from the Cornell fans in attendance.

After changing in the locker room, the Big Red were off to Bronco Stadium (the home of Boise State University Football) to see the famous blue turf for themselves. Afterwards, they will hold a closed practice at a local High School where Coach Donahue will inevitably work the team much harder and focus on strategy for tomorrow’s game.

[- Jake Mastbaum]

On Missouri’s Pressure

Q: A lot of teams practice against six or seven guys to try to simulate [the press]. Have you guys done any of that?

Gore: Yeah, we have. We have thrown the sixth guy in on the half court and stuff like that just to kind of simulate their athleticism, their length and stuff and the pressure. So we actually have been doing that this week.

Q: How did you do when they threw the sixth man on the floor?

Dale: I think we did pretty well. We just got to be ball tough and execute passes and come meet the ball. I think that we can do a great job if we just make sure that we do those things and not turn the ball over.

Gore: I think we did a pretty good job all week. I think it’s a focus that we just have to make sure that we don’t play into their hands of speeding ourselves up and rushing our style of play. I think we just kind of need to play at our own pace and realize that if we do that, we’ll be okay.

Q: I wonder if you can talk about your use of the sixth man to simulate their defense. What were you able to accomplish and how did it work out?

Donahue: Over the last couple weeks we have done that. And I sensed that we would get a team that would play, since were run good offense and we have good shooters, that someone that’s going to try to take us out of our offense, full court press, good long athletes. And so we took that week we add, because we have no league tournament, and just really worked on the press, thinking that we would get somebody.

Sure enough, you get somebody not only that does it, but does it for 40 minutes. So I think that’s helped us. That being said, as I said, it’s very hard to simulate just the pace of the game that Missouri presents itself. It’s extremely difficult to do that.

Q: One guy on your team that didn’t go through this last year was Chris Wroblewski, can you talk about how he’s handling the pressure and the role he’s going to play in tomorrow’s game, especially with all of the press that Missouri puts on?

Chris, he’s had three turnovers in the last 120 minutes of play in our league. I have great confidence in him. I think he’s as good as we have out there versus Missouri. Going through the experience, I think he’s ready to play this game, seems like nothing really bothers him poise-wise. He never seems to lose his composure

On the Underdog Mentality

Q: Coming in as an underdog what do you do to prepare mentally against a team like Mizzou, not only for the game but also for the hype surrounding them?

Wittman: I don’t think we go into the game worrying that we’re the underdog. I think that we just got to go out there and execute our style of play. I know Adam mentioned it earlier, we played a pretty challenging pre-conference schedule. We have got to use that experience to help us play against this type of athleticism that were going to see on Friday.

On “The Office”

Q: Do any of you guys watch “The Office?”

Wittman: Yes.

Have you seen the Cornell episode?

Wittman: Yeah.

[Note from the editor: Clearly this Missouri reporter doesn’t know that there is more than one ‘Cornell Episode.’ Shame on him for not doing his research.]

On Balancing Ivy League Academics and Basketball

Q: We see the Ivy League team come in and it’s kind of a fascination. What’s the academic pressure like or would you say you have a basketball experience that’s pretty close to what everybody else is doing?

Wittman: I think the transition to college is tough for anyone. I think just like any other program out there it takes some to adjust and to get used to college and succeeding in the classroom, I guess. So I’m not really sure if its that much tougher at Cornell or anything, but because I haven’t been to any other college, I think it’s an adjustment for anyone.

Gore: The classroom and the ball experience, I think, would probably be pretty similar to most places. I think we should put in the same kind of work on the basketball flood that the other teams do and I think the classroom is something that we focus on quite a bit, but I don’t that that distracts away from the level of basketball we’re trying to play.

On NCAA Tournament Experience

Q: You guys all went through this last year and not only the game, could you talk about going through the media attention, the practices again and what experience that’s going to give you helping you ultimately trying to pull off this upset?

Wittman: Obviously experience is going to help us. I think las year we might have got caught up a little bit in that. We heard a lot about how it was the first time Cornell had been to the tournament in 20 years, I think. This year we’re a little more focused. But on the other hand our game experience alone isn’t going to win this game. We still have to play really well if we’re going to win. We’re going to have to execute, going to have to take care of the ball. And experience can help us do that if we use it in the right way. But it is not going to win the game by itself.

On Missouri’s Nicknames

Q: Missouri seems to come up with nicknoames for a lot of its players. Carroll, the junkyard dog, and they call Tiller the Tasmanian Devil and of course they play 40 minutes of hell, so what do you call the practice of putting seven guys out on defense against your offense to try to prepare them for all that?

Donahue: I wish I had a cute nickname for it.

On What People Should Expect From Cornell

Q: A lot of people talk about Missouri’s style of play. Obviously we haven’t seen you guys play a lot out here. What should people expect out of your team?

Donahue: I think that the thing that sticks out if you haven’t seen us play is that we play fast. We’re trying to – my thing in basketball is always been be the aggressor. An obviously within your physical capabilities, but I think the thing that makes us good is that we’re able to play fast and still be skilled. Still be fundamentally sound.

We’re the leading scoring team in our league by a long shot. We have been. We’re going to have to move the basketball, someone’s open, and he’s a shooter, he shoots the ball. We just try to play fast, share the basketball, make teams guard us right away, and then obviously we’re trying to limit opponents. We’ll mix up our defense, we’ll play different ways, try to prevent them from getting good shots. Not necessarily taking them out of their stuff, but more staying in front, limit them to one shot, keep them out of the lane, contest them hard, and all those things that are within our physical capabilities.

[- Sam Aleinikoff]

[video http://slopemedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/cornellvsprincetonhome3.7.09.flv Cornell Basketball vs Princeton (3/7/09)]

 On senior night in Newman Arena, 5 graduating seniors said goodbye with a 60-51 victory over the Princeton Tigers.  With the win, Cornell was able to avenge their first conference loss of the season that took place at the hands of the Tigers at Jadwin Gym.  The victory marked the end of the regular season for Cornell who finished with an astounding home record of 13-0.  Look for Cornell in the NCAA Tournament as they will be representing the Ivy League for the second straight year.