Winner of eight Ivy titles, the Cornell men’s basketball program has a long, rich history. The team most recently won the league in 2010 when the men advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. The Red is coached by Bill Courtney, a coach noted for his use of an up-tempo, quick-paced style of play. The 2015-16 captains are junior guard Robert Hatter and senior guard Robert Mischler.
“We’re understanding more about how we’re going to get our shots,” head coach Brian Earl said. “What you saw tonight is we had a lot of good looks at the basket.”
After the Red’s most recent defeat on Wednesday, sophomore guard Matt Morgan said the shots would begin to fall. Against Lafayette, the shots certainly fell and Cornell won, 82-75.
Against the Raiders Wednesday, the Red could not find the same magic and Cornell dropped its third straight game to begin the 2016-17 season, losing to Colgate at home, 67-63
Brian Earl lurks, not in a menacing way, but you always know where he is in a room. The new coach of the Cornell men’s basketball team — hired after eight years as an assistant at his alma mater of Princeton — is a relatively quiet presence at practice. Sometimes Earl jumps into drills, but often he’s slightly removed from the middle of the action, observing. He watches practices intensely, walking over to players one-on-one to tell them if he sees something they can improve. From time to time, Earl will raise his voice, but that’s often limited to when he’s announcing what drill he wants to see the team work on next.
With the 2016-17 men’s basketball season fast approaching, it is a good time to look back on the team’s 2015-16 season. Last year, Cornell went 10-18 including 3-11 in Ivy League, tied for last in the conference. This season — the first with Brian Earl at the helm — kicks off on Nov. 11 against Binghamton.
Following last year’s last place finish in the Ivy League, Cornell men’s basketball team was ranked seventh in the league in the conference’s annual preseason poll that was announced on Wednesday afternoon.