Cornell gets on the bus this weekend for what has to be the school’s biggest road trip since a 7-1 Big Red team headed east to face Harvard and second-place Dartmouth 19 years ago. Princeton’s disastrous Ivy campaign makes the trip look much less menacing than in past years, but every Ivy team has at least one road loss after Round One of league play. What does this weekend mean for Cornell’s title hopes? In a word: everything.
The setting
Already trailing Penn by a game in the loss column and tied with Yale at 6-2, Cornell can’t afford to fall farther behind. After this weekend, all three contenders will have one home and one road weekend left (along with the season finale at Princeton for the Quakers). The schedule is not in the Big Red’s favor, however, as Penn plays four of its final five games against teams in the bottom half of the league standings. The two second-place schools can’t count on the rest of the league to do their dirty work for them, and need to take down Penn themselves. And then there’s the matter of next weekend’s Cornell-Yale tilt in New Haven.
The odds
Pomeroy gives the following odds on Cornell winning this weekend’s games:
Friday at Princeton — 54 percent
Saturday at Penn — 11 percent
The scenarios
Using these numbers, we can calculate the chances of the four possible scenarios. In order of likelihood:
Cornell wins at Princeton, loses at Penn
Should Cornell escape Jadwin with a win, but fall at The Palestra the next night as is expected, this would leave it at 7-3 in the league with four games remaining — including the game at Yale next weekend. There’s a chance that Columbia could pull the surprise in Philadelphia on Friday, but not much of one. (Eight percent, according to Pomeroy.) This means the Big Red almost certainly finds itself two games behind the Quakers in the loss column. The situation is complicated even more by the fact that Yale is a heavy favorite this weekend at home against two second-division teams in Dartmouth and Harvard. Barring a major surprise, the Bulldogs also would pick up a game on Cornell, effectively forcing the Big Red to win in the crucible of Lee Amptheater.
Odds: 48.1 percent
Cornell gets swept
If Princeton were to snap out of its funk on Friday night and Penn were to finish off the sweep the next night, the Big Red would see its chances of contending effectively snuffed out. Four losses hasn’t been enough to win the league since it emerged from the Dark Ages of the mid-80s, and unless Ibby Jaaber, Mark Zoller, and Brian Grandieri all quit basketball to devote their full attentions to finding fish for Grandieri’s aquarium, Penn isn’t going 2-3 against that schedule over its final five games. Cornell getting swept effectively would make it a two-team race, provided there are no upsets in Philadelphia or New Haven.
Odds: 40.9 percent
Cornell sweeps
The Big Red never has swept the Penn-Princeton weekend. As a matter of fact, in 49 trips all-time, Cornell has been on the business end of a sweep 38 times. If the Big Red can overcome this history and take two this weekend, it will find itself no worse than tied for first place. And with three of its final four games against the bottom half of the league, all that would be standing between Cornell and at least a share of the Ivy title next Friday’s showdown with Yale at The Church. Penn still would control its own destiny, but odds are the Quakers would have to win out — possibly including a playoff game — to get back to the Big Dance.
Odds: 5.9 percent
Cornell loses at Princeton, wins at Penn
This would raise some major eyebrows, but in the event Cornell were to drop a game at Princeton on Friday, only to win at Penn the next night, it wouldn’t be a total disaster for Steve Donahue’s squad. Depending on the result of Friday’s Columbia-Penn game, the Big Red would be no worse off than a game out of first. The key difference would be that Yale very likely would be in first, so Cornell would have to go to Yale and win, then root for the Bulldogs to upset Penn in Philly on the final weekend.
Odds: 5.0 percent
