Jake Fiegen ’26 dunks against Brown on Feb. 28. Fiegen and the Big Red secured a spot in the Ivy League Tournament, which will be held at Newman Arena March 13-15.
Ivy basketball tourneys bring ‘madness’ to Ithaca
By Steve Gattine, Cornell Chronicle
The ivy-speckled road to the NCAA Tournament runs through Ithaca this year, as Cornell hosts the men’s and women’s Ivy League Basketball tournaments – the first time Cornell has served as host and the culmination of more than a year of preparation across the campus.
The top four teams in the men’s and women’s divisions will battle March 13-15 in Newman Arena for the conference’s automatic bids to the “Big Dance.”
On the men’s side, the Big Red’s late-season push earned them the fourth seed, and they will take on top-seeded Yale on March 14 at 11 a.m. Cornell beat the Bulldogs, 72-69, on Feb. 27 on a last-second 3-pointer by senior Jake Fiegen ’26. The other semifinal features second-seeded Harvard taking on third-seeded Penn. The winners will play for the title March 15 at noon.
For the women, Brown, Columbia, Harvard and Princeton have all qualified but seedings have yet to be determined going into the final weekend of the regular season.
“Cornell is thrilled to welcome all of these incredible student-athletes to Ithaca,” President Michael I. Kotlikoff said. “The NCAA basketball tournaments are cultural institutions and lots of fun. I’m excited and proud, both as a fan and as the university’s president, to host our terrific Ivy athletes, coaches and fans.”
Cornell officials shadowed their counterparts from Brown during the 2025 Ivy tournaments in Providence, Rhode Island, gaining a behind-the-scenes look at some of the challenges they would face as host, said Nicki Moore, the Meakem and Smith Director of Athletics and Physical Education.
Cornell cheerleaders celebrate during the Big Red’s win over Brown on Feb. 28.
And with some improvements at Bartels Hall and Newman Arena in anticipation of the event, Moore believes Cornell is ready for the spotlight.
“This gives Cornell the chance to step up on a broader stage and show the country the kind of energy we bring to whatever we’re doing,” Moore said. “We’re known for our hospitality, and we get to show it.”
Cornell becomes the seventh of the eight Ivy League campuses to host since the inaugural events in 2017. The league has not announced a plan for host sites after the current rotation ends in 2027 with Dartmouth.
The crowd at Newman Arena goes wild as the Cornell men’s basketball team defeats Brown.
The Cornell men’s team’s participation adds an extra element of excitement for the Ithaca community. Wins against Yale and Brown (86-80) on Feb. 27-28, coupled with a number of other favorable results, meant the Big Red didn’t have to wait until the final game of the season to qualify.
“We’re honored and proud to be hosting this tournament,” said Jon Jaques ’10, the Robert E. Gallagher ’44 Head Coach of Men’s Basketball. “All year, we said we want to be peaking in March and I think we are trending in that direction.”
Jaques, a starter on the Cornell team that made it to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 2010, emphasized to the team the importance of doing the detail work that leads to success this time of year.
“The little things, the sacrifices, are all worth it when you get to play in March,” he said.
Planning for the tournament started in January 2025, and has involved everyone from the Cornell University Police Department and Cornell Dining to Ithaca College, Tompkins Cortland Community College and Ithaca High School, which will be hosting practices for qualifying teams.
“If you count all the people who have been working behind the scenes and those who will be working or volunteering the weekend of the tournaments, about 250 people will have been involved to make this happen,” said Megan Ramey, associate athletic director for events and operations.
The student sections cheers on the Big Red at Newman Arena.
Ramey, who oversees logistics for all Cornell athletics events, is serving as the tournament director. She will be making sure the weekend runs smoothly, from coordinating security, parking, vendors and ushers, to ensuring the floor in Newman Arean is tacky enough for the players and the scoreboard is operating properly.
The weekend promises to be a hectic one on campus, Ramey said, as basketball won’t be the only game in town. The 11th-ranked Cornell men’s hockey team will be hosting an ECAC Hockey quarterfinal series at Lynah Rink, and the Cornell men’s lacrosse team, the defending national champion currently ranked seventh in the country, hosts Brown on March 14 at Schoellkopf Field.
“With the overlapping games, we’re looking at having possibly 20,000 people on campus for Cornell athletic events on that Saturday,” Ramey said.
Cornell will be closing Bartels Hall, home of Newman Arena, to the public for the week prior to the tournament in order to prepare. “Megan Ramey has done a heroic job of pulling all the pieces together, coordinating every element, and doing it with a great deal of enthusiasm,” Moore said.
Ramey, who coordinates upward of 200 athletics events each year for Cornell, said this a special chance for Cornell to take center stage.
“This is as close as Cornell will ever come to hosting an NCAA Tournament game,” she said.
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