Cornell 70, Columbia 64

Cornell overcame an early 10-point deficit. The Red was led by sophomore guard Louis Dale’s 18, but couldn’t stop Columbia’s John Baumann, who scored 21 points and pulled down 11 rebounds.

Cornell 72, Columbia 54

The Red burst out of the gate, running out to a 10-0 lead and never looked back. The Red swarmed Baumann with double teams and he did not hit one field goal and the Lions only shot 34 percent from the floor. Junior guard Adam Gore was aggressive going to the hoop and scored 17.

Cornell 75, Brown 64

Although the Red could not control the Bears’ guard Mark McAndrew, who dropped 22 points, Cornell scored the first seven points after halftime to pull ahead for good.

Cornell 66, Yale 45

They say hindsight is 20/20, but the way the men’s basketball team talks, you might think hindsight has grabbed a pair of binoculars and is seeing with 20/10 vision.

To a man, each player on this Cornell basketball squad seems to look back and point to the same stretch of the season that created a new mentality — a mentality that allowed the team to sweep the Ivy League.

With microphones stuffed in his face after the Red clinched the Ivy League championship against Harvard on March 1, sophomore guard Louis Dale calmly answered the questions posed from voices obscured behind several cameras.

“What was the key that allowed you guys to go undefeated in Ivy play?”

Every coach tries to schedule games that will prepare his or her team for peak performance in conference play. Cornell got some intense training early this season, as it traveled to face two of college basketball’s most celebrated teams, Syracuse and Duke.

The Red was dominated by the Orange Dec. 22 in the Carrier Dome, 80-64. The contest against Duke was competitive, with the Red even holding a lead in the first half. The Blue Devils would eventually earn the win, 81-67. Despite both games resulting in losses, the Red used the experiences to propel it to its current 16-game winning streak.

The Red’s bid for upsets started that day at the Carrier Dome. In the contest, the Red were out-rebounded, 52-37, and shot 10-for-25 from the 3-point line.

One of men’s basketball head coach Steve Donahue’s favorite words this year has been “hurdle.” It perfectly represents his one-game-at-a-time mentality. It explains why — before that final buzzer sounded — he didn’t know how to comment on what winning the Ivy title means. To Donahue, each game represents a certain kind of hurdle, and until that hurdle is either cleared or not, there is no tomorrow.

Cornell’s first game against Penn this season was one of the bigger hurdles the team had faced at that point. The Red hadn’t beaten the Quakers in nine years. The Quakers were Ivy champs three years running. Cornell was returning home to high expectations after a dominating road weekend sweep of Yale and Brown. It was the first sellout in Newman Arena since 2004.

After losing three consecutive games, the men’s basketball team’s momentum picked up after an overtime win against Quinnipiac, a competitive loss to Duke and wins over Alvernia and NJIT. Junior Jeff Foote was finally getting into a groove after being forced to sit out the first semester due to NCAA transfer regulations. All these events gave the Red momentum going into Ivy League play.

The men’s basketball team’s historic sweep of Ivy League play almost didn’t happen. After dominating double-digit victories against Yale and Brown the weekend before, the Red traveled to Cambridge, Mass., in hopes of earning its ninth consecutive win. Cornell fell well short of dominating Harvard as it trailed from the 16:34 mark in the final stanza, down by as much as 11 with 9:55 on the clock.

Despite 16 turnovers, 2-of-13 shooting from the 3-point line and 7-for-18 long distance shooting for the Crimson, the Red was within striking distance. With 31 seconds left in the road contest, Cornell was down 71-66 and seemed on its way to returning to the “pack” with its first conference loss of the season.

Whatever semblance of journalistic integrity I had, it was gone. Call it a moment of weakness. Screw that. Call it a night of weakness (If only I didn’t have so many of those).

It was the second half of the men’s basketball game against Harvard. Cornell’s lead was insurmountable and it was just a matter of time until the buzzer sounded and the Ivy League title would reside on East Hill for the first time since I thought pooping my pants was the best way to relieve myself.

“I think I just lost all objectivity,” I said to the Harvard Crimson reporter next to me, a maniacal grin spread across my face.

“I would to,” he deadpanned.