Cornell-Kentucky: Classic Match-Up Looms in Sweet 16

Why, you ask?

Because Kentucky coach John Calipari, to many, represents all that is wrong with college basketball. Sorry, John Feinstein, but I'm with Bob Knight all the way on this one. There's something amiss when you leave the two college programs you led amid the fog of scandal. Have it happen once, you might be unlucky, suffer from a bad booster. Have it happen twice, well, you might have a problem of your own making. Moreover, Kentucky opened up the vault for Calipari, making a statement that it would do whatever it takes to bring home a national title. So, for lack of a better villain, Kentucky represents, today, the evil empire of college hoops (even if it has very talented, and, yes, likable kids in the program).

Cornell represents the stark contrast to Kentucky. Its coach, Steve Donahue, worked his way up through the great network that is Philadelphia basketball. He helped the legendary DII coach Herb Magee (the winningest men's basketball coach in NCAA history) at Philadelphia Textile, now Philadelphia University. Then he worked with Fran O'Hanlon (then an assistant under Fran Dunphy at Penn, now the head coach at Lafayette) and Fran Dunphy at Penn (he assisted Dunphy for 10 years at Penn and helped coach some great teams). And then he took the Cornell job against great odds, perhaps the toughest in the country, because prior to his winning his first Ivy title three seasons ago in Ithaca, Penn and Princeton had combined to win all but two Ivy titles in 35 or so years (Cornell did win one -- in 1988). So, to come to a hockey school with not much of a tradition in basketball, to win three Ivy titles in a row and then beat Temple and Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament (becoming the first Ivy team to get to the Round of 16 since 1979, when Penn went to the Final Four) is one of the greatest coaching jobs in the past, well, 30 years.

Anywhere.

And he did it without basketball scholarships, without much help from boosters, without special living quarters or travel accommodations for his players, well, without a whole lot of hype, jazz, spectacle, or anything else. These kids play their league schedule on back-to-back nights, Fridays and Saturdays, in order not to miss too much class. They travel by bus for league play, and the Ithaca to Philadelphia ride never is a lot of fun. They have two grueling weekends every year, playing Penn and Princeton on back to back nights. Sure, it's not Vanderbilt, Florida or Mississippi State, but within the league these are as hard-fought contests as in any league. And trying to beat Penn and Princeton on back-to-back nights is like trying to beat Duke and Carolina on consecutive nights in the ACC, but they don't play back-to-back nights in the ACC or any other league for that matter.

Cornell has no McDonald's All-Americans. Their league doesn't have a TV contract, and they don't appear all that much on television, and, when they do, outside the NCAA tournament, it's on ESPNU. Generally speaking, their kids don't plan on going into the NBA; they're students first and foremost.

(That's not to say that the Kentucky kids aren't good kids, aren't smart, don't care about their studies, etc. But those kids' priorities have to be a bit different when four of the players are projected to be first-round picks in the NBA draft. By the way, if I were a projected first-round pick in that draft, I'd make it a priority to improve my basketball skills if that's what I'm most talented in).

So, you have the student-athletes of Cornell against a very talented and explosive Kentucky team. Can Cornell stay with the Wildcats? Can they do the unthinkable and win?

Well, they scored a ton of points on two teams -- Temple and Wisconsin -- that are supposed to be excellent defensive teams and they beat those teams rather badly. In Kentucky, they'll be facing a young team that has great athleticism and quickness, but a team that generally played (relatively) close games during the regular season (winning league games by about 12 but not really blowing anyone out). That quickness could be a shock for the Big Red, but if they stay in their game, get out to a quick start and take a lead, they'll force Kentucky to play from behind and to press themselves. If they can continue to cut the game in half -- staying close at the 10-minute and half-time marks and then keep it close with 10 minutes to go -- they can win the ball game.

Because to suggest anything else would be silly, given what the Big Red have done so far. Cornell has to be careful not to rest on its laurels, not to get too giddy over a tremendous accomplishment. Kentucky has to refrain from getting overconfident. I'm sure that while the coaches are pounding the players on the fact that someone forgot to tell the Cornell players that the Ivy entrant is supposed to play gallantly for about 28-32 minutes before losing the first-round game by 15 and that the Big Red are formidable and can beat them, deep down the kids in Lexington have to be thinking that given their pedigrees and their performance in the tournament to date, they can crush Cornell easily. Sure, you can tell yourself that the kids will believe the coaches and bear down hard, but kids are kids, and they'll believe what they want to believe and the hype about their exploits in the tournament so far.

And, if you don't think so, then what's to explain, to some degree, how underdogs such as St. Mary's, Washington and Northern Iowa have advanced so far. Yes, they're good teams, but you have to believe at for some period of time their opponents looked at the name on the jersey and their seeding and figured all they needed to do was show up and play a half-decent game.

Big mistake.

Sure, Kentucky will be favored, and perhaps by double digits, given their great play in the first two games, their #1 seeding, and Cornell's being from the Ivy League. And they might win by 15 or 20. And then there won't be much of a story except to say that Cinderella's carriage turned into a pumpkin, with Kentucky being the enforcer of the midnight curfew. That's a familar tale.

But every now and then a Gonzaga gets to the regional final and a George Mason gets to the Final Four. It may be that St. Mary's and Northern Iowa are better set up for that type of run, but after their stellar play -- winning two games convincingly -- you can't count out the Cornell Big Red. They are playing great basketball and are playing confidently.

And they're playing for all the kids and all the conferences who annually get patronized or dissed on the major networks, by the tournament committee, and by the greedy athletic directors who will argue with you until their blue in the face that there should be 96 teams in the tournament or that conferences with teams like St. Mary's, Northern Iowa and Cornell shouldn't get automatic bids if the tournament were to remain the same size. They're playing for the alums of those schools, too, and for the alums of all of the conferences who have to suffer from the slobbering that goes on about teams in the 6 "power" conferences.

Sure, Kentucky travels well and will have a lot of fans in the building. But I've been to 2 Final Fours and one regional final tournament, and I can tell you that the local fans will root for the underdog of the four teams in the group -- the team with the best story -- especially if it smells an upset. Should Cornell keep it close or take the lead, the bulk of the fans in the building will be rooting for the Big Red.

Loudly and proudly. I've seen it happen during my days in Philadelphia, especially with a regional final in about 1978 that featured Maryland, Syracuse, Georgetown and Iowa. Somehow, some way, the Philadelphia fans united behind Lute Olson's Iowa Hawkeyes, which won the region. There was no reason to root for them -- all of the other schools had better connections to the area -- but the fans did. They were the underdog, they played smart, and they played very well.

I'm sure that Coach Cal and his assistants are trying to warn the Kentucky players about the perils of playing Cornell. Steve Donahue probably doesn't have to do as much work in this area. Kentucky's reputation precedes itself, and showing a few minutes of highlights from Kentucky's first two games will make believers out of even basketball athiests and agnostics.

This NCAA tournament shows why they play the games. There are many good teams out there, and there are many kids who are eager to show that they belong with the over-hyped power conference schools. While the networks might be lamenting the loss of Villanova, Georgetown and Kansas (among others), hoops purists are overjoyed at the presence of St. Mary's, Northern Iowa and Cornell.

And we're hoping that those schools cause the network executives more pain and the tournament selection committee more embarrassment.

Sure, it's a long shot for any of those three teams -- especially Cornell -- to get to the regional final.

But they've gotten this far, haven't they?

And they have a taste of slaying the giants now, too.

The giants should tread lightly and carefully.

Because someone forgot to tell the Davids of the hoops world that they don't belong, that they shouldn't be here.