The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 250 is Cornell basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Mercer basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 2
- NCAA wins: 2
- Bids: 5
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 10.7
- Bids per season: 0.04
- AP Polls: 3
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 5
- NBA players drafted & played: 1
- Conference Players of the Year: 3
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 8
- Conference tournament titles: 0
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Cornell basketball
Lately, Cornell has been improving, with five straight seasons of winning basketball. What began with Brian Earl transforming the program is now Jon Jaques doing his best to keep the Big Red near the top of the Ivy League.
It came after a rough stretch for the program that had 10 straight losing seasons. The lowest point was a 2-26 record in 2013-14.
But when Steve Donahue was the head coach, they were rolling. He led the Big Red to the big dance in 2008, 2009, and 2010. In the last year of that stretch, Cornell knocked off 5-seed Temple by 13 points and 4-seed Wisconsin by 18, losing to top-seed Kentucky in the Sweet 16. They finished with a 29-5 record, one of the best seasons in Ivy League history, especially in the modern era.
It wasn’t their first Sweet 16, though! Back in 1954, Cornell made the 16-team NCAA Tournament field, losing by two points to Navy in the first round.
As far as the non-modern era goes, Cornell had five Consensus All-American nods way back when. Gil Halstead was named twice in 1913 and 1914, Walter Lunden also in 1914, Leslie Brown in 1915, and John Luther in 1923.
Unfortunately, while Cornell’s history runs deep and the Donahue era showed promise, there have been a lot of losing seasons. Between 1969 and 1981, the Big Red never won more than nine games in a season.
Still, they’ve had enough moments in other seasons to make up for the bad, and lately, have arguably been a top half program in the Ivy League, which is no small feat.