So yesterday the Cornell Big Red (intimidating) defeated Harvard 86-53 to officially clinch the NCAA Tournament’s first berth of this year by taking the Ivy League title. Expect a few words from Keith Olbermann in the near future. Other famous alums: Pop Warner, Ann Coulter, Janet Reno, Bill Maher, Jimmy Smits and, of course, Bill Nye, the Science Guy.
It’s the same ol’ thing: Ivy League school gets their 30 seconds of glory within the first 10 minutes around the first weekend of March’s SportsCenter, gets their double-digit seed and is buried during the 3 p.m. game on Thursday or Friday of The Tournament. Is it scary how well I know this routine? I have friends, I swear.
Anyway, Cornell breaks the monotony of the IL sending either Penn or Princeton to the dance for the past 20 years. In fact, Cornell was the last non Penn/Princeton team to go, when it happened in ‘88 (just for fun: they lost that year to Arizona’s No. 1-seeded team that had Steve Kerr and Shaun Elliot).
Call me kooky, but this is why I like the Ivy: No postseason tournament. I know there’s too much money involved with postseason tournaments (see: Ivy league schools not needing them), but if only a few more conferences around the country were to simply reward automatic berths to regular season winners, I think it would give college basketball just a little more personality.
Two more stats: Cornell will be making its third apperance in The Tournament (‘54, ‘88 and now); the Big Red have the second-longest winning streak in the nation (14), behind Davidson’s 18.
