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Bt John Walters
FanHouse.com
January 31, 2010
ITHACA, N.Y. -- There was a "Nerd Alert!" in college basketball Saturday night, as the top two titans in the Ivy League, Harvard and Cornell, met on the hardwood. Ordinarily such a contest would generate little outside interest beyond the campuses of the Ancient Eight, the hallways at Sports Illustrated (an inordinate number employees of which are Ivy-educated) and a niche cadre of Vegas gamblers.
Not this weekend. When the Crimson (14-3) visited the Big Red (17-3), fans at sold-out Newman Arena were treated to a matchup of two potential NCAA Tournament teams that featured, as it was billed, two potential NBA players. The Ivy League has never sent two representatives to March Madness in the same season. There are currently no Ivy League alums on an NBA roster and the last such player to be drafted, Penn's Jerome Allen, was taken in 1995 by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Judging from Saturday night's result, an 86-50 Cornell victory, there will likely be just one Ivy League rep in the NCAAs come March. However, there may have been three, not two, players on the court who have NBA potential.
"No one thought he could play at any level," Cornell coach Steve Donahue said, recalling the days when his seven-foot senior center Jeff Foote arrived four years ago. "I had Division III people asking me, 'What are you doing with that kid?' "
Against Harvard, Foote, who stood 6-7 when he graduated high school in 2005, led the Big Red in scoring (16 points) and rebounds (9) while also blocking three shots. Teammate Ryan Wittman, Cornell's all-time leading scorer and the Ivy's all-time leader in three-point field goals, receives all the scouting buzz (rightfully so, but the 6-6 senior is also the son of former NBA player Randy Wittman), but as Donahue said, "Jeff is the key to our team."
Foote's performance (the Big Red student section chanted "Foote! Foote! Foote!" So clever, those Ivy Leaguers) overshadowed the marquee showdown between Wittman and Harvard senior Jeremy Lin. A 6-3 guard from Palo Alto, Calif. who was dubbed "Mr. Improbable" in high school, Lin has a Stephen Curry-esque touch and weaves through traffic with uncanny grace. He could become the first Asian-American to be selected in the NBA draft and has been featured lately in the pages of Sports Illustrated, Time and, because it's the Ivy League, Business Week.
The Sports Illustrated piece noted that Lin has been subject to racial taunts on the road, such as "Sweet and sour pork!" (Seriously? Why not instead, considering Lin's NBA aspirations, "No MSG!"?). The Big Red student section did not venture down that path, instead barraging Lin with chants that were simply crass, cliché and, most importantly, wildly inaccurate ("You suck!" and "Overrated!")
Wittman spent the first half in foul trouble -- picking up two quick fouls just two minutes into the contest -- while Lin spent the second half burdened with four fouls. Neither player was at his best, although Lin did lead all scorers with 19 points on an efficient 6 of 9 from the field and 7 of 8 from the line.
It was Foote, though, who was literally and often figuratively head and shoulders above the competition. And it is Foote whose long and unlikely trek to a school located less than 20 miles from his home is so remarkable.
"Jeff did not receive any scholarship offers out of high school," said his father Donald, who stands 6-9 and played at Niagara University (an older brother, Jesse, who is 6-11, played at the Rochester Institute of Technology). "We suggested Cornell, but he wanted to go away from home some."
Not too far, though. Foote enrolled with a good friend at St. Bonaventure in Olean, N.Y. He walked on to the team and red-shirted as a freshman in 2005-2006. Foote believed that he would receive a scholarship offer as a sophomore, but was surprised when he returned to campus and none was forthcoming.
"We dropped him off at school on a Monday," says Donald, "and by Friday he wanted to come home."
That is where fate and a bizarre moment of serendipity intervened. Earlier that year, in January 2006, Cornell guard Khaliq Gant was paralyzed while diving for a loose ball in practice. Gant dislocated the C-4 and C-5 vertebrae in his neck and was taken to the intensive care unit at Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmir, N.Y. Wanda Foote, Jeff's mother, is a nurse there.
Wanda Foote was impressed by the manner in which the entire Cornell basketball team would keep vigil with Gant. On the day that Gant, who has since regained the ability to walk, was discharged, the entire team arrived at 7 a.m. to see him off. One day during Gant's stay, Foote mentioned to Big Red assistant coach Zach Spiker that she happened to have a son who was seven feet tall and enjoyed playing basketball (imagine being a hoops recruiter and hearing that?).
"No one ever actually told me I was seven feet," says Jeff Foote. "I realized it when I stepped on the scale my freshman year at St. Bonaventure and the scale didn't go high enough to measure me. It topped out at 6-11."
Within a year all seven feet of Jeff Foote were at Cornell. The problem was that he only weighed 208 pounds and he wasn't very good. "Jeff always wore a T-shirt when he played, a XXX-Large, to hide his arms," says Donald. "But he worked hard and he's now up to 265 pounds."
Foote no longer dons a T-shirt when he plays. Last summer Foote spent three weeks at the Eden Prairie, Minn., home of Ryan Wittman. Randy Wittman, who won a national championship with the Indiana Hoosiers in 1981 and is now an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards, drilled both players, stressing the importance of fundamentals and strength-training. When Cornell played at Kansas earlier this month, Foote dueled 6-11 Cole Aldrich, the top post player in the nation, to a virtual draw, scoring 12 points and grabbing six boards to Aldrich's 13 and nine. The Big Red nearly handed the then undefeated Jayhawks their first loss of the season, blowing a lead in the final minute in Lawrence.
"I've never been around an athlete who's made greater strides," says Cornell head coach Donahue. "People ask me all the time who's responsible for Jeff's transformation. Jeff's responsible."
Meanwhile, the Ivy League transformation, at least for this season, is nearly as remarkable. Of Harvard's four losses, two were to Top 25 teams -- Connecticut and Georgetown on the road -- while a third may have been to a new Top 25, Cornell. Of the Big Red's three losses, two have come to teams -- Syracuse and Kansas -- that will be in this week's top five. Those also took place on their opponents' home floors.
"I feel very comfortable playing any team in the country on a neutral court," Donahue said when asked if the Big Red, whose five starters all scored in double figures against the Crimson, deserved to be ranked this week. "We have the ability with our depth, size and experience to create problems for teams."
Come March, when all the games are played on a neutral floor, look for Cornell to create problems for someone in the NCAAs. And not just in the first round.
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