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.