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Stanford aims to continue success against Ivy League

Mar 20, 2008 - 11:55 AM No. 14 Cornell (22-5) at No. 3 Stanford (26-7) 5:00 pm EDT

ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) - After missing two matchups earlier in the season, Brook Lopez will get his first taste of the Ivy League.

Lopez and the third-seeded Cardinal will look to come up with another strong performance against an Ivy League opponent when they face No. 14 Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament South Regional on Thursday.

Suspended for the first nine games of the season due to academics, the 7-0 Lopez missed out on a season-opening thrashing of Harvard, 111-56, on November 9 and a 72-61 win over Yale 11 days later.

Overall, Stanford (26-7) owns a 27-8 mark against the Ivy League, including a 53-38 victory over Dartmouth in the 1942 national championship game in the only previous postseason meeting.

Despite his problems with the books, Lopez has been an A student on the courts, leading the team with 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds en route to being named to the All-Pac-10 First Team.

The sophomore was even better in the Pac-10 tournament, scoring 21.7 points and grabbing 11.0 rebounds in three games as the Cardinal fell to UCLA in the conference title game.

With Lopez and his twin bother Robin manning the paint, Stanford figures to have no problem snapping its two-game losing streak in first-round games.

While the Cardinal are making their 13th appearances in the NCAAs in the last 14 years, the Big Red (22-5) halted a 19-year drought by posting a perfect 14-0 season in the Ivy League, which is the only Division I conference not to hold a postseason tournament.

Cornell, which has never won a game in two previous appearances, enters the "Big Dance" riding a 16-game winning streak. It absorbed its last loss in an 81-67 setback at Duke on January 6.

The winner will meet either sixth seed Marquette or No. 11 Kentucky in the second round on Saturday.