It was one of those rare games when it was perfectly acceptable for the common spectator — OK, me — to switch allegiances on every score, even though I didn't actually care who won. Also, players on both teams wore those uncomfortably large triangles of eye-black. It was college lacrosse at its finest.

Cornell seemed to have the title wrapped up first when it took a late three-goal lead, and again, when it regained possession leading 9-8 with 20 ticks left. Then came one of the best sports sequences of the year — or, as one video dubbed it, the Greatest 20 seconds in Lacrosse History!!

It's Moyer. Twenty seconds left. Nims all over him. Ball on the ground, still loose. Can Syracuse get it? Keough does. Ten seconds left. Here's Abbott, trying to get loose, in front, Nims has it, he scores! He scores! Kenny Nims scores! With four seconds left! Can you believe it? The Orange ties it up! 9-9!

Soon after, Cody Jamieson scored early in the overtime and, of course, Syracuse won. No way Cornell was going to rally after a failed clear, a missed ground ball, a catch in traffic, an over-the-shoulder pass tipped by a defender right into the stick of the game-winning sniper, who still needed to dodge the goalie and sneak in a bouncer.

Amazing rally lifts Syracuse [Post-Standard]
Syracuse wins 2nd straight national title [The Daily Orange]

2) DeMarre, DeMarre, DeMarre That being said, when the Tigers are on, they're on. Their 81.1 points per game is good for sixth in the country, and they're second in steals per game and first in assists per game. The man who can do it all is DeMarre Freakin' Carroll. DeMarre Carroll, Missouri's representative on the first team all-Big 12, averages 16.8 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 2 apg and 1.6 spg. He also screams a lot. When he's not busy scoring, assisting, stealing (basketballs only, promise), rebounding or screaming, he's succeeding academically. He's on the Academic all-Big 12 team, meaning his head's screwed on a lot tighter than many of his Tiger predecessors. Or maybe all of them. Regardless, it's probably unwise to not pay attention to a 6-7, braided monster who's nicknamed the Junkyard Dog. The Junkyard Dog! Those kids at Cornell just peed a little reading that.

3) The ghost of Athena. Ah, yes. The infamous Athena nightclub. It's the place where hoop dreams literally go to die. In January of '08, back when the Tigers had a respectable chance to make a dent in the Big 12, a minor scuffle-turned-brawl-turned-minor riot occurred at Athena, a favorite hangout spot for Missouri athletes. Seniors Stefhon Hannah and Jason Horton—who were both pretty important and stuff—were charged with assault, and a total of five players were either cut or suspended due to the "altercation." The Missouri men's basketball team promptly descended to basketball hell, all hope was lost, and the program became even more of a joke than it was during the final days of Quin Snyder's reign. Coach Mike Anderson has since replaced many of the offenders with players more up to his personal standards (read: decent human beings) and the results have been special. Nobody knows how long this unexpected success will last, but hey, why let the fun end now? — Ian Thomas

CORNELL BIG RED

1) The Best Laid Plans... At this point last year, the Big Red were coming off an undefeated Ivy League season and looking to make a national impression in the tournament as a 14 seed. Instead, Cornell travelled cross country to Anaheim, had their worst shooting day of the year, got clobbered by third-seeded Stanford, and had their cheerleaders mocked by Bill Simmons. So in planning for 2009, Cornell decided to push for a better seed in the tournament. The Big Red returned their five leaders in minutes, including reigning Ivy League POY Louis Dale, sharpshooting forward Ryan Wittman (son of Randy), and 7-foot center Jeff Foote. In addition, the team set up an ambitious non-conference schedules for a Cornell team, including games at Syracuse, at Minnesota, at St. Joseph's, and vs. St. John's in the NIT Tip-Off. Things were looking rosy for the Red, right up until a few weeks before their opening game when they lost their entire starting backcourt—consisting of Dale and senior Adam Gore—to injuries. As a result, Cornell dropped all of their tough non-conference games and blew double-digit halftime leads against the Orange and Gophers. Dale and Gore have since returned to action—though Ivy League Rookie of the Year Chris Wroblewski has taken Gore's place in the starting lineup—and the Big Red won the Ancient Eight for the second straight year. They are the first non-Penn, non-Princeton Ivy League school in 50 years to earn consecutive NCAA Tournament berths. Their reward for such accomplishments is another 14 seed and another cross country trip. But instead of sunny Anaheim, they'll be in Boise, Idaho this year. At least it will make Ithaca seem more exciting when they get back.

2) Earning Their Andy Bernard Comparisons Cornell is traditionally a hockey school before anything else. Every year, Cornell students camp out for season tickets to Big Red men's hockey and, before the school changed the system three years ago, risk broken limbs in a mad weeknight stampede to claim line numbers. Cornell's Lynah Rink is known as one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play due to the volume and spirit of the student fans. The men's basketball team's recent rise to (relative) prominence has resulted in record attendance for Big Red basketball. But while the quantity of student fans may be there, the quality is not. Back in November, Cornell hosted South Dakota in their season opener. It was supposed to be a game to celebrate last year's accomplishments with the raising of the Ivy League Champion banner, as well as set the tone for a highly-anticipated season. At the end of the game, however, nearly every student in the crowd was booing. The Big Red didn't lose—in fact they won by 10—but by only scoring 79 points, the students were denied their free chicken wings at Generic Local Chicken Wing Restaurant. This situation nearly resulted in a unusual incident a couple weeks ago. The game that clinched the Ivy League title for Cornell was won by a score of 83-59 over Penn. Had the Big Red scored four points fewer in that game, it would have been the first occurrence in world history of students storming the court while booing.

3) Cornell's Best Hope for a National Title (Obviously Not Basketball) This year, Cornell best sport is wrestling. Seriously, their wrestling team is number 2 in the nation. Who knew? — Max Wasserman

Unless your team is in the Ivy League, of course, but no one feels sorry for those eggheads. Cornell has secured the first NCAA bid of the year by finishing off their regular season league crown. But in every other conference, each and every school—no matter how pathetic—can hang on to that fleeting, desperate hope of running the table in their conference tournament and getting that automatic bid. That's why there's no need to ever expand the field of 65, because no one is ever truly eliminated until now.

Three more conferences will give out their bids today—Atlantic Sun, Big South, Ohio Valley. And while other teams in the big conferences are still fighting for their regular season championships and higher seeds, and while Pitt-UConn and Duke-UNC will probably be great games, it doesn't really matter who wins. None of their seasons are ending this weekend and it's the do or die action that really gets fans' blood pumping.

Cornell tops Penn, repeats as Ivy champ [Philly Inquirer]
NCAA Tournament Tracker [Rivals]

2. Cornell is so fucking arty. To illustrate, the logos of the Big Red:

The attitude best expressed by the old school Cornell Bear = "The fuck you looking at, bitch?"

The attitude best expressed by the new school Cornell bear = "BEAR TRAP! BIG, LETTER C SHAPED BEAR TRAP! SHIT!"

The attitude best expressed by the new school Cornell bear and full university name = "The motherfucking Cornell billboard just fell on me! OW! WHAT THE SHIT?"

3. Conversely, Cornell will continue to be fucking slow on the uptake. Let's follow the logic. Cornell has, relative to the competition, essentially the same competitive assets to offer a new recruit. Cold. Pasty white chicks. Hypercompetitive nerd classmates. Low-end frat boys. Maybe Harvard can claim to be in Boston, and Columbia can claim to be in NYC, but nobody there goes out either due to the courseload. Anyway, of all the "Ancient (read: Elite) Eight," Cornell is the ONLY one with a State School. Three of them actually. Yes, it's true, there is an Ivy League university that includes three state schools, meaning ANYONE IN NEW YORK can go to AN IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL for the same cost and difficulty AS SUNY GENESEO. It would seem obvious that the coaches of the teams might want to, um, use that as an aid to get NEW YORK CITY BALLERS. Is there hope for this? Well, if you read the bio of Jeff "More than 6" Foote (one of only three 84+ inch tall players in the league), you would notice that he is from New York (the Deep North part, unfortunately) and that he goes to the Ag school. RELATIVE SUCCESS! But no! Despite living within a gunshot of Ithaca, he originally went to St. Bonaventure (I assume this is a college) and only because the Cornell coach chatted up his nurse mom while she was on the job did he get recruited. Someday this will have to be figured out, if Jim Boeheim can keep his players in Cadillacs without NCAA sanctions, surely someone can figure out how to recruit at Cornell and win the short, slow, eight-team league more often than once every goddamn 20 years. — Silky John-STON!

So Cornell won the Ivy League, and ESPN wanted video of the clinching game from WBNG-TV in Binghamton. They were a little push about it. Meet Brendan O'Reilly, a guy unlikely to host "SportsCenter" any time soon, who wrote an open letter to ESPN.

Yes, we are happy to share the video from Cornell clinching their Ivy League title. Hope you don't mind if we go ahead and worry about our show first though. I know everyone loves the Sportscenter, with the zany commercials and all, but we're going to go ahead and edit our stuff first. We're selfish that way.

Oh, when you run our video on all your shows, please find a font size roughly one pixel in height to show that it was shot by WBNG. We want people that have 60 inch monitors to have to squint to read it. That's the goal. So in conclusion, it was just fantastic bending over backwards to get you video. It really was.

Remember the old days, when people were afraid to criticize ESPN out of fear of The Empire? Isn't it better now? You have to admit it, it is. We bet ESPN, deep down, would have to admit it too.

Dear ESPN [WBNG]

Even if you like conference tournaments as much as I do, this might still seem a little early to be talking about March Madness. But seriously, think about it; if this weren't one of those random leap years, it would be March right now, right? But the main reason we're going to talk tournament today is because we might very well have our first NCAA tournament entrant by the time we head off to bed tonight.

Now, as Deadspin readers, I know you're probably already aware that the Ivy League doesn't have a tournament, but rather gives their auto-bid to the regular-season champ. And you probably also know that Cornell has powered through the genius league with a perfect 10-0 mark, and a pretty stellar 18-5 overall record. The numbers are simple enough that even this public-school grad can understand them: Brown, the closest challenger to Cornell, has three losses. It was swept by Cornell, and there are four games left in the Ivy season. Ergo (Get a load of me! I said Ergo!), if the Teddy Bears knock off Dartmouth (9-15) tonight, they get the first bid.

Let's look at the Big Red via the incisive medium of bullet-points:

• Cornell hasn't lost since January 6th, at Duke. That's a twelve-game winning streak.
• The Big Red lost four road games: at Ohio, Bucknell, Syracuse, and Duke. Then there was the mystifying loss at home to Colgate. Honestly, ask the average American, and they'd probably be surprised to find out Colgate and Cornell were different schools.
• Their win streak includes the requisite victory over NJIT, in Newark. The Highlanders scored less than any other team that played Cornell this season. Their 33 was even less than the 46 put up by non-DI visitor Alvernia College.
• Cornell is led by 6'6" Ryan Wittman (15 ppg) and 5'11" Louis Dale (12.7 ppg), but it also sports a legit seven-footer in the person of Jeff Foote, a senior transfer from St. Bonaventure. I hear he can weld the hell out of anything you got.
• The last time Cornell made the Big Dance was in 1988, as a 16 seed. It was blown out 90-50 by Arizona, which eventually made the Final Four.
• Cornell is the Big Red. Dartmouth is the Big Green. It's going to be like Christmas all up in here.

Sadly, there will be no national television coverage of this event.

[The Cornell Basketball Blog]

• Louisville 90-Notre Dame 85. Harangody had 40 points and 12 rebounds, but the Cardinals put the kibosh on Kyle McAlarney to earn the win, holding the superb shooter to 3-of-14 shooting on the night, and just 1-8 from his beloved three-point line. Bizarrely enough, Harangody himself hit for 75% from behind the arc. David Padgett paced the home team with 26 points. Louisville is now tied with Georgetown atop the Big East, and the Irish fall 1 ½ games back.

• Wisconsin 57-Michigan State 42. Goran Suton went for 14 and 15, but his Spartans fell in Madison, allowing Wisconsin to claim a share of the Big Ten regular-season title.

• Butler 66-Wright State 61. This win officially gives the Horizon's #1 seed to Butler, which means that, barring an early exit by the Bulldogs, the road to the NCAA auto-bid goes through Hinkle.

• USC 70-Arizona 58. Here comes that crazy Strength of Schedule debate again. The Wildcats played everybody, but didn't beat enough of them. So does that make them a good team for the NCAA's, or does it prove that they can't handle the competition? On the other hand, maybe the Arizona football team should sign that kid who winged the water bottle at Tim Floyd.

The Weekender

Tonight

• Dartmouth (9-15) at Cornell (18-5). I'm going to have to preview the hell out of Cornell until March 8th, when the next bids go out.

• Niagara (18-8) at Siena (17-10). The winner of this game gets to break the three-team 11-5 logjam in the MAAC standings and join Loyola (MD) at the top of the heap.

Saturday

• Georgetown (23-4) at Marquette (21-6). If Marquette wins this home game, Louisville sits alone atop the Big East. I'm going to let that sink in for a minute...

• Washington State (21-6) at Stanford (22-4). Both teams are in, so this is for seeding.

• St. Mary's (24-4) at Gonzaga (22-6). Winner takes top seed in the WCC tournament.

• Kansas State (18-9) at Kansas (25-3). Take these last few chances to watch Michael Beasley and Brandon Rush, friends. You owe it to yourself.

Sunday

• Kentucky (16-10) at Tennessee (25-3). Will this be another 40-point thrashing for the Wildcats, or will they finally stamp their ticket to ride?

• Indiana (24-4) at Michigan State (22-6). Wisconsin has claimed their share of the Big Ten title, will Indiana make them slice that pie?

• UCLA (24-3) at Arizona (17-11). Want to hit Ben Howland with a water bottle? Go ahead, punk, make his day.

Eric Angevine writes about College Basketball for Storming the Floor and CAAZone. He can be reached at stormingthefloor@gmail.com.

College basketball is slowly tipping off, with a bunch of high-profile schools taking turns writing a check to places like Savannah State and Florida A&M and letting the backups get some work in while cruising to uninspired 25-point victories. (Our Illini begin this process tonight against old nemesis Austin Peay.)

But sometimes this can backfire, as Northwestern found out this weekend when the Wildcats lost at home to freaking Cornell. We don't know much about the Wildcats this season, other than that they're expected to finish 16th in the Big Ten, but when we look at this team picture, uh, well, we're not exactly surprised they're expected to struggle this year.

They look like the JCC winter-league champions, or maybe the Indiana state basketball champs from 1954. Greg Oden will be awfully fun to watch against these guys. Sheesh.

Long Range Shooting Dooms Wildcats In Opener [Daily Northwestern]
Illini Off To Running Start [Decatur Herald & Review]