Yes, it's true, the Cornell Big Red Men's Basketball team clinched the Ivy League title last night with an 85-53 win over Harvard. Read the article in The Ithaca Journal. In 1988, when I was a senior in high school, only Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have won the Ivy League title (Yale tied Princeton in 2001-02) and therefore been the only representatives to the NCAA Tournament, aka "The Big Dance", aka "March Madness." In 1988, Cornell was the #16 seed and played #1 Arizona and lost big. This year, the sports pundits have Cornell as a #13 seed as they have amassed an impressive 20-5 record with two losses coming against perennial powerhouses Syracuse and Duke. Cornell has currently gone undefeated in league play and is 12-0 with two more games to play next weekend. Cornell, because the Ivy League doesn't run a conference tournament and sends the league champion, is the first team to officially punch it's ticket to the dance.
When the tournament begins in a few weeks, I will be rooting for my alma mater far above Cayuga's waters. However, I won't be making any bets that they will make it into the second round. Go RED!