The men’s basketball team has released its schedule on the newly designed Cornell Athletics website. This season’s most intriguing contest, however, does not come from the Ivy League portion of the schedule, but from one of the Red’s non-conference matchups: a showdown with Duke University. The game is scheduled for Jan. 6, in Durham, N.C.
Athletics officials were not available to confirm the schedule, but The Sun received confirmation of the contest from a source within Cornell’s squad who requested anonymity because the schedule had not been formally announced yet. Red head coach Steve Donahue also recently stated that a game with Duke would be played on Jan. 6 in front of a national audience on FOX.
Duke has consistently been among the top programs in the country in recent years, but had a relatively disappointing 2006-07 season, finishing 8-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference and failing to advance from the first round of the NCAA Tournament – its worst results since 1996. Cornell enters the season as one of the favorites to win the Ivy championship after finishing third last season.
Cornell will face Syracuse again this season, in Syracuse’s Carrier Dome, on Dec. 22. The Red’s Ivy League schedule begins on Jan. 19, at home against Columbia. All times are listed as TBA.
Link to M. Basketball Schedule
The men’s hockey team also released its schedule on the website, headlined by the Nov. 24 contest against Boston University at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There will be 14 home games, not including the Oct. 13 Red-White scrimmage that kicks off the team’s season and two exhibition games. Potentially adding a twist to the Red’s ECACHL playoffs push is the placement of the team’s typically charged home game against Harvard on March 1 – the last game of Cornell’s regular season.