Punching Tickets for March Madness

Alex Tyler '06, a starting forward for Cornell, helped lead the Big Red men's basketball team to its first Ivy League championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in 20 years.

Nearly 100,000 results appear when Googling "Alex Tyler Cornell." USA Today, the New York Times, and ESPN have chronicled his prowess on the court.

The March 1 victory over Harvard gave Cornell an automatic bid to the NCAAs; the Big Red fell to Stanford, 77–53, March 20 in a first-round game in Anaheim, California. Tyler scored 10 points and added two rebounds and two steals in the contest. Cornell finished the season 22–6 overall and a perfect 14–0 in the Ivy League.

For more on Tyler's team, visit Cornell's site, where you can also view Tyler's bio.

Tyler (above), of Clear Spring, Maryland, is the youngest of seven children—and he isn't the only Mercersburg graduate participating in the Division I version of March Madness this season; Romone Penny '03 is a guard at American, the Patriot League champion. The Eagles (21–11) defeated Colgate March 14 to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament, and gave No. 2-seeded Tennessee a run for its money in a first-round game March 21, but dropped a 72–57 decision in the contest, which was played in Birmingham, Alabama. (Penny saw action, but did not score; read more about him from his hometown Minneapolis StarTribune.)

A third former Blue Storm standout, James Craft '05, fell just short of the Big Dance; his Tennessee State team lost to Austin Peay March 8 in the finals of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

At the Division III level, Rochester (which features Colin Cubit '06) won two games to advance to the Sweet 16, but the Yellow Jackets were eliminated by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in a round-of-16 matchup March 14.