On Friday, Cornell (20-5, 12-0 Ivy)clinched a share of the the Ivy League championship with a win against Dartmouth (10-16, 3-9 Ivy) before eventually taking the crown outright against Harvard (8-20, 3-9 Ivy) on Saturday.
Against Dartmouth, Cornell led by just five points, 32-27, at the half, though the game was closer than that, as a buzzer-beating jumper by the Big Red's Louis Dale extended the Cornell lead. Dale lead his squad to victory, finishing with 22 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
For the Big Green, Elgin Fitzgerald '10 continued his recent streak of impressive play with a team-high 15 points. DeVon Mosley '09 contributed 11 points for the Big Green while Alex Barnett '09 contributed seven rebounds, three assists and three steals.
Dartmouth struggled from the field with just 39 percent shooting, and Barnett stumbled on the offensive end, shooting just 3-of-14 on the game for seven points. The Big Red crowd of 4,227 may have rattled Dartmouth in tangible ways -- the Big Green only shot 5-of-12 from the foul line.
Eventually, the Big Green's poor shooting allowed Cornell to pull away in the second half.
With the win, the Big Red improved its winning streak to 13, its longest streak in 43 years. With its 86-53 win over Harvard on Saturday, Cornell became the first team in the last 20 years to take the Ivy Championship from Penn (11-17, 6-5 Ivy) or Princeton (5-21, 2-9 Ivy) and became the first team in the NCAA with an automatic bid to the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
A notable point of optimism for Dartmouth was the way in which the contest against Cornell ended. The huge home crowd was in a frenzy as a thunderous dunk and an alley-oop helped build a 25-point lead for the Big Red. Instead of folding and letting the game end in a rout, the Big Green dug deep and went on a 10-2 run to end the game.
This momentum seemed to carry over into Saturday's game at Columbia (14-13, 7-5 Ivy). Dartmouth foiled the Lion's and garnered its first road conference win of the season, bringing to play the Dartmouth team that could beat any team in any environment.
Barnett scored a game-high 19 points, adding to his game-high seven rebounds.
Fitzgerald added 10 points while Kurt Graeber '09 contributed a game-high seven rebounds to the team's victory.
"It is definitely good to get a road win," co-captain Michael Giovacchini '08 said.
The Big Green's defense posted an outstanding performance against a motivated Columbia team in Saturday's contest.
In the first half, Columbia was able to muster just 14 points and found themselves down by 13. Whenever the Lions could rally for a run, Dartmouth responded by coming up with stops and buckets. The Big Green also earned 13 consecutive free throw points that helped the team put away the game for good. It was an impressive performance for a team that has long been out of the running for the Ivy Championship.
It is a shame, however, that the Big Green could not have played well with consistency for the majority of the season, despite the relative strength of the team's starting lineup.
After Dartmouth's last two games this weekend, the squad will have to work on making sure its younger players continue to play hard and compete with consistency if it is to build on this season and improve its record for the 2008-2009 season.
The Big Green will finish the season at home next weekend, when it faces off against Yale (11-15, 5-7 Ivy) on Friday and Brown (17-9, 9-3 Ivy) on Saturday in its final two games of the year. Dartmouth lost by a combined 66 points against Yale and Brown earlier in the year.
"We need to play better as a team, as well as execute against Brown's zone and respond to how physical Yale was with us last time," Giovacchini said.
On Saturday, the team will honor seniors Giovacchini and Johnathan Ball '08.
