Big Red's Coury Runs Into Familiar Faces

Tension can often run high when a player faces his former team for the first time.

When Mark Coury transferred from Kentucky to Cornell, it didn’t make the radar screens of basketball fans nationwide—or even those following the Ivy League. But now that the Wildcats and the Big Red prepare to face off in tomorrow’s Sweet Sixteen match-up in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Coury will have the opportunity to help deprive his former teammates of a trip to the Elite Eight.

Coury originally joined the Wildcats as a walk-on before earning a spot in the starting lineup his sophomore year. The post player did not play last year but averaged 11.0 minutes per game this past season for Cornell.

The switch to the Ivy League from a major Division I school is not unique to Coury nor to basketball.

This past fall’s installment of The Game featured one transfer quarterback, Patrick Witt, who transferred to Yale from Nebraska. Next year’s game could feature two if LSU-transfer Andrew Hatch manages to beat junior Collier Winters for the starting nod next fall. Hatch transferred from Harvard to LSU and then back to the Crimson, picking up a National Championship ring on his way.

It remains to be seen whether Coury’s new team will find the same success as Hatch’s second squad did, or if teammate Ryan Wittman will be the one to repeat history, watching the Wildcats end his collegiate career just as they had ended his father’s. (Wittman’s father, Randy, played basketball for Indiana.)

Regardless, hoops fans nationwide will be sitting on the edge of their seats throughout this Sweet Sixteen match-up watching top quality, high-stakes basketball.