Cornell Rallies to Top Tigers in Triple OT

Friday, February 16

Ithaca, N.Y.

8:00 PM

Princeton University

11-13, 3-6Ivy

101

107

Cornell

10-12, 4-5Ivy

OT 1

OT 2

OT 3

Princeton

101

Cornell

107

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

February 16, 2018 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Cornell roared back from what was a 22-point deficit Friday night in Ithaca to take a 107-101 win over the Princeton men's basketball team in triple overtime in what was a pivotal battle for a spot in the Ivy League tournament.

With the 8:15 p.m. start, the team that won knew it'd be tied with Brown for the fourth and final Ivy League Tournament berth with five games to play, and Cornell finds itself in that spot. Penn and Harvard co-lead the league at 8-1 with Yale next at 5-4 and Brown and Cornell after that at 4-5. Princeton and Saturday night's opponent, Columbia, are tied for sixth at 3-6 in the league.

Princeton led 16-6 less than eight minutes in and saw its lead grow to as many as 16 points before the half and 22 points on an Aaron Young 3-pointer with just less than 12 minutes to go in regulation. The Big Red then went on a 17-0 run that was part of a larger 23-2 run to trim the Tiger lead to one at 67-66 on a pair of Steve Julian free throws with four-plus minutes left in regulation. Cornell then took its first lead of the game on a Matt Morgan 3-pointer at 71-69 with just more than two minutes to go, and the Tigers were able to force overtime when Amir Bell drew a foul with less than one second to go and Cornell up one. Bell made one of the two, and regulation ended with a 76-76 tie.

The first overtime then saw neither team lead by more than three, and the Tigers were able to force a second OT when Myles Stephens drove to the bucket with seven seconds left to knot it at 82-82. Princeton led three times in the overtime periods with two of those coming in the second OT, but after Stone Gettings tied it back up at 88-88 with 1:08 to go in that frame, neither team could break the deadlock, and the second-longest game in Princeton-Cornell series history continued.

Princeton took its final lead of the night on a Myles Stephens 3-pointer with 3:42 to go in the third OT, but Cornell answered with back-to-back fruitful possessions, first with a Julian dunk and then with a pair of Gettings free throws to take a lead the Big Red never gave back. Cornell made eight free throws in the final 33 seconds to seal it, and after Sebastian Much put in a layup on Princeton's final possession, the Tigers had their second game in program history where both teams scored 100-plus points, both of which have come this month with Brown winning 102-100 in overtime on Feb. 3 in Jadwin.

Princeton tied a season high with 16 3-pointers but had just one of those in the overtime periods. Cornell raised its shooting clip from 40.9 percent in the first half to 60 percent in the second and kept it stron in the OT, shooting 50 percent to end at 51.5 percent for the game and outdo the Tigers' 44.9 percent.

Cannady's 32 points led four Tigers in double figures with Stephens at 25, Aaron Young at 16 and Will Gladson at 10. Matt Morgan led four Big Red players in double figures at 31 points.

Princeton will hit the court again at 7 p.m. Saturday at Columbia on SNY and the Ivy League Network.

Postgame Notes

• Princeton now leads the series with Cornell 147-81, but the Big Red ended the Tigers' six-game winning streak in the series with their first win over Princeton since 2015, also in Ithaca.

• Junior Devin Cannady scored a career-high 32 points to move into 15th place on Princeton's all-time scoring list, passing former teammate Steven Cook '17 (1,148). Cannady now has 1,169 points, with Steve Goodrich in 12th at 1,207. Cannady drained six 3-pointers, one short of his career high, to tie himself with former teammate Spencer Weisz '17 in fifth in program history with 209 career threes. Cannady's previous single-game scoring high was 29 points, last achieved at Yale last February.

• Senior Amir Bell had six assists to pass Marcus Schroeder '10 for eighth place on the program's career assist list, now with 298. The stat has been kept since the 1974-75 season.

• Junior Myles Stephens' 25 points was five off his career high of 30, set in Princeton's 103-93 OT win at USC in December.

• Senior Aaron Young outdid his previous season-best total of 11 points with 16 tonight, two off his career high of 18 set last season at Liberty.

• Sophomore Will Gladson set career highs with 10 points and seven rebounds in a career-most 28 minutes.

• This was the second-longest game in Princeton-Cornell series history. The teams went five overtimes on Feb. 24, 1979 in Ithaca with Princeton winning 66-61.