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Bad sports, good sports: Cornell is more than just smart people, it would seem

The Ivy League is known for many things. Most of them have to do with very smart people being very smart. Rarely are the member schools known for their athletic prowess. They don’t even give athletic scholarships. Despite that, the Cornell basketball team spent the weekend proving that sports really do exist in the Ivy League. They have made it to the Sweet Sixteen [1] of the NCAA Tournament.

The Big Red has had a fantastic season, going 28-4 in the regular season. Still, most of those games were against schools like Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, not exactly your murderers’ row among college basketball teams. Yet, they did mix in wins against St. John’s, Alabama, Davidson, and St. Joe’s, and two of their four losses were against Kansas and Syracuse, both of whom went into the NCAA Tournament as number one seeds. Cornell was made a 12-seed, and was pitted against fifth seed Temple in the first round. Many felt that Temple actually deserved a higher seed, so the Big Red had its work cut out for it. If they were supposed to be underdogs, though, no one shared it with them. They dominated Temple, winning 78-65.

The win moved them into the 2nd round, where they faced the fourth seeded Wisconsin Badgers. Again they were underdogs, although the 4.5 point line indicated that Vegas was giving Cornell a lot of respect. Not enough, it turns out. Wisconsin could do very little as Cornell crushed them, 87-69. This team is for real.

On Thursday, Cornell will face the top seed in their region, the Kentucky Wildcats, who are a mere 34-2 on the season. This may be a far different deal than their previous tournament games, but after what they did to Temple and Wisconsin, I wouldn’t count them out. Their performance has been so impressive that Northern Iowa’s win over Kansas [2], the overall number one seed, gets barely a mention here.

Good sports, continued:

2) Have you ever gone cross-country skiing? It’s a grueling sport. The athletes who excel at it are truly great athletes. Imagine then, how awesome Brian McKeever must be. He won his event at the Paralympics by a huge 42 seconds, which is quite a margin of victory. And oh yeah…he’s blind [3].

3) There are a lot of athletes that shrug off the idea that they are role models to children. Then there are people like Ty Warren. Rather than attend his team’s voluntary workouts and collect a bonus of a quarter of a million dollars, the New England Patriots defensive lineman chose to use the time to take classes at Texas A&M [4] to complete his degree. I like that message.

Bad sports:

1) A football player from Boise State, who was suspended last week for violating teams rules, has been arrested and charged with felony aggravated battery [5]. Jason Robinson, a defensive back, will be arraigned this week.

2) What a waste. Shawn Andrews was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2004. Early in his career, he looked to be a future Hall of Famer. He made the Pro Bowl in three consecutive years, and was expected to anchor the Eagles’ line for years to come. A combination of injuries, depression, and a lot of truly bizarre behavior led to his release [6] this week.

3) Continuing the theme of talented but odd football players, Bryce Brown, a rising sophomore at the University of Tennessee, has decided to leave the team [7]. He was one of the top recruits in the nation last year, and helped trail blaze the growing trend of high school drama queens who love the recruiting game so much that they prolong it as long as possible. Brown, who was once committed to play at the University of Miami, de-committed and then waited until long after Nation Signing Day to commit to Tennessee, assuring that there would be a lot of attention focused on just him. There was already a lot of drama surrounding him from the Miami de-commit, combined with his relationship with an adviser who helped raise money for him to take college visits. Now he is bailing on the Vols after one season. Maybe he’ll follow Lane Kiffin to USC. They deserve each other.

Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02