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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Cornell
Princeton Holds Off Stubborn Cornell, Maintains First Place In Crowded Race
March 01, 2002 | Men's Basketball
March 1, 2002
Final Stats
Ithaca, N.Y. - Nobody said winning a championship was going to be easy, and the three teams still alive in the Ivy League men's basketball race can attest to that first hand.
First it was Yale's turn to tough one out, and then Penn had to rally to stay even itself. Finally, it was up to Princeton, who made some key foul shots when it needed to defeat a pesky Cornell team 61-57 at Newman Arena Frdiay night.
Yale defeated Harvard 77-72 at home in the first game of the evening, and Penn then rallied from a 15-point deficit to nip Columbia 51-47.
Princeton, meanwhile, had to rally from as many as nine back to defeat Cornell, whom the Tigers had hammered at Jadwin Gym last month 60-38.
When the dust had settled, nothing much had changed in the league race. Princeton is still in first place at 10-2 (15-9 overall), followed by Yale (10-3) and Penn (9-3). The Tigers are at Columbia Saturday night (7:30), while Penn travels up to Cornell. Yale finishes its regular season by hosting Dartmouth. Princeton is then at Penn Tuesday night.
Should Princeton defeat Columbia, it would clinch at least a tie for its ninth Ivy championship in 14 years. Should Princeton defeat Columbia and Penn and Yale lose, then Princeton would clinch the outright championship.
On the other hand, should Yale win and Princeton lose, then Princeton would have to defeat Penn at the Palestra Tuesday night to force a playoff. And of course there is the possibility of a three-team playoff, which would happen should all three leaders either win or lose Saturday and then have Penn beat Princeton.
Still, those scenarios were far away from Princeton, which was fighting an uphill fight all night against Cornell. The Tigers led 6-4 before Cornell took the lead, and the Big Red wouldn't give it back for nearly 30 minutes.
Princeton then was battling two scripts that have defined its season: First, the Tigers were unbeaten when they shot at least 46% from the field and second, the team that had the lead for the longest had won 22 of Princeton's first 24 games.
The Tigers shot just 40.9% in the first half to 54.5% for Cornell, so it was no surprise that the Big Red 28-25 at intermission. Princeton finally tied it on some big three-pointers by Konrad Wysocki and Ahmed El-Nokali, and though the Princeton struggled from beyond the arc all night (5 for 18), it did shoot 9 for 17 for the second half to finish at 46.2%.
Princeton built a 51-44 lead and looked to be putting the Big Red away, but the home team scored six straight to make it 51-50 with a minute to go. With the shot clock running down, Kyle Wente then dropped in a runner on the baseline, and Cornell turned the ball over on its next possession.
That set up the final 30 seconds, which took nearly 10 minutes, as Cornell continued to foul the Tigers, who would shoot 15 for 17 from the line in the second half, including 8 for 8 in the final minute.
For all of that, it was still 59-57 after Wallace Prather nailed a three-pointer with four seconds to go, but El-Nokali threw a tough inbounds pass to Wente near midcourt, and Wente then forwarded it to Will Venable, who was fouled with 0.7 seconds to go. Venable then made both to seal it.
Wente finished with 14 points, a team-best six rebounds, three assists, three steals and no turnovers. Wysocki had 13 points off the bench, while El-Nokali added 11, including 4 for 4 free throw shooting.