Jeff Tambroni just doesn’t get these polls.

“I’m sure Syracuse is still on top,” the Cornell head coach said yesterday, just six days after his Big Red beat then-No. 1 SU, 15-11.

Sorry, coach, the Orangemen dropped to fourth.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “I’m sure we didn’t move too far up.”

Actually, coach, your Big Red jumped from No. 10 to No. 5.

“OK,” Tambroni said. “So where’s Princeton?”

Eighth.

With that, Tambroni laughed.

Cornell, ahead of Princeton? Defending-national-champion Princeton? Seven-consecutive-Ivy League-titles Princeton? Thirty-seven-conference-wins-in-a-row Princeton?

Yeah. When you’ve won nine straight games and control your own destiny in the conference like the Big Red, sure, it makes sense. Because at 4-0 in conference, Cornell can take one more step toward its first Ivy championship since 1987 when it travels to Princeton (5-4, 2-1) on Saturday at noon.

“There’s a ton of hype,” Tambroni said. “It’s going to be a big game and a game that means a lot to both programs. Both of us hold our own destiny in our own hands. This game has implications for everything that follows into the postseason.”

It has historical implications, too. Princeton has had a kung-fu grip on the Ivy League’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament since 1996, a year after it tied for the conference title with Brown. A loss to Cornell, though, would knock the Tigers out of the Ivy chase and leave them a long shot to earn an at-large bid.

The Tigers would be only the second team since the NCAA sanctioned the national championship in 1971 to miss the playoffs the year after winning the title.

The first? Cornell, in 1972.

“If we don’t win, we’re out of the running for the league,” Princeton coach Bill Tierney said. “If we do win, we still have two more to play, and it’s a little crazy. We know our backs are to the wall. We have to keep going, keep winning. The Yale loss put everything in perspective.”

That came March 30, a stunning 15-13 defeat that snapped the Tigers’ 37-game conference winning streak. Things have straightened out since, with 18-4 Ivy wins against Penn and Harvard and a 7-6 squeaker against Duke.

Now comes Cornell, the nation’s hottest team. When Ivy teams play the Big Red, the only high scores they can boast of are their bloated SAT figures.

Goalie Justin Cynar, considered by many the nation’s best, has yielded just 18 goals in four conference games this year. And freshman attackman Sean Greenhalgh, who torched the Orangemen for six goals, has scored 14 of his team-leading 32 in Ivy competition.

“Cynar is the one who has given us the hardest time over the past few years,” Tierney said. “He’s a great goalie, a very good athlete. He gave us fits last year at Cornell. They’ve got one of the best defenses in the country both personnel- and scheme-wise. They’re so well-coached.

“Offensively, they’re as patient and intelligent as a team can be. They found some new spirit with this Greenhalgh kid scoring a lot of goals. Jeff Tambroni has done a great job keeping this team focused, and they’re winning. Overall, they’re as steady a team as there is out there.”

His worries are legit. Ask the Orangemen.

Maybe Cornell is merely reverting to its revered past. From 1968 to 1982, the Big Red won 15 of 16 conference championships. Only a Brown crown in 1973 broke the streak.

So for Tambroni, who took over the program two years ago, a 14-year drought seems as long — and torturous — as back-to-back viewings of “Pearl Harbor.”

“It probably seems longer for our alums than for me,” Tambroni said. “It’s been in our program’s history. Princeton has a great recent history. Certainly, Cornell’s is as rich. The Ivy League championship is a mere memory. The only time we get a chance to look at it is when we dust off some of the old trophies from the ‘70s or ‘80s.

“Beating Princeton is one step to get a lot closer to something people thought would never happen.”

Butler did it

It was time for one of those talks. The ear-splitting, sore-throat-causing rampages coaches unleash when they have a point to make.

Craig Kahoun had about 100 points to make.

“It was a long time coming,” said the 28-year-old Butler head coach. “With the team and I. With myself. There was a lot of pent-up potential and frustration, and it volcanoed.”

And Loyola found itself in the wrong place. By the final whistle Saturday, the Greyhounds — No. 3 in the nation just two weeks ago — had lost to an unranked, unheralded and unflinchingly confident Butler bunch, 7-6.

Score one for molten lava.

And for Kahoun — who played on the Bulldogs from their 1993 inception to 1996 — he toiled for two years as an Ohio State assistant and came back to Butler in ’99 to assist his coach, Jon Hind. Last year, Hind took an administrative position, leaving the pup in charge of the program.

He oversees a 4-5 (0-2 Great Western Lacrosse League) team full of lacrosse nomads. Butler’s goalie, Brendan Winkler, hails from Miami, where, apparently, they play lacrosse. The Bulldogs’ roster is dotted with places foreign to the lax world dominated by Central New York, Long Island and Baltimore players. The Bulldogs roster includes the likes of Colorado, Maine, Ohio, Texas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and British Columbia.

“That’s where hard work really comes in,” Kahoun said. “We can’t walk out our back door and look at kids. Lacrosse is growing like crazy here, but we’re looking for kids in other places.

“We wanted guys who came here with the fire we’ve been missing. We pride ourselves on our riding game and ground balls because we manufacture a lot of second chances. Loyola doesn’t lose too many ground-ball wars. That’s the type of lacrosse I love and what this program’s built on — blue-collar work ethic.”

ACC: All conference contenders

Poor North Carolina. John Haus’ troops finished the Atlantic Coast Conference season 1-2, just like peers Maryland and Duke. Atop the mountain stands Virginia, the new No. 1, at 3-0.

So when it came time for the pairings in this weekend’s ACC Tournament at Duke, the three-way tie was broken by blind draw. Guess who drew UVa?

“We get to play the No. 1 team in the country,” Haus said. “There are a lot of teams out there that would like that opportunity.”

It gives the Tar Heels (7-3 overall) a chance Friday and Sunday to prove to the NCAA Tournament selection committee that they’re worthy of an at-large bid. The winner of the four-team ACC Tournament does not earn a bid, though UVa has practically locked up an at-large spot.

Maryland (7-3 overall), which suffered three one-goal losses, and Duke (5-5 overall) find themselves in the same spot: Win out and you’re likely in.

“We’ve just got to take care of business, wherever it is,” Terrapins coach Dave Cottle said. “Duke’s already beaten us once (9-8 on March 2), but very few times you get a second chance.”

This weekend gives them just that.

“In most cases, the ACC Tournament hasn’t really changed someone’s status for the playoffs,” Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said. “This year, Duke, North Carolina and Maryland are going to make or break themselves for the playoffs. The team that can get one win is going to have an advantage. If a team can win two games, (that’s) a huge advantage for the NCAA Tournament.

“We almost have to win the thing not to hurt ourselves. That doesn’t seem fair.”

Luck of the Irish

Notre Dame finally dropped out of the top 20 this week.

Makes sense. The Irish are 4-6 after an 11-8 loss at Army on Saturday. None of the four teams they’ve beaten deserve top 20 consideration.

Yet because of automatic qualifiers, the Irish find themselves in the same position as last season: undefeated in the GWLL and poised to earn another NCAA Tournament bid.

“Everybody went into the year knowing what the situation was,” ND coach Kevin Corrigan said. “Whatever your situation is, that’s what you coach to and prepare for. Do I think it’d be a better tournament if it had all open bids? Yeah. Would it be more fair? Yeah.

“This is nothing new, though. Everybody understands. Whether we’re in or out at the end of the day, we have no reason to (expletive) and moan. You knew what you were in for at the beginning of the season and you play accordingly.”

Yet teams that beat the Irish — Hofstra, Loyola, Army and Penn State, among others — could all get snubbed, with only six at-large tournament bids this season.

Too bad, coaches said.

“It’s the way it is,” said Haus, whose Tar Heels have lost three games by a total of four goals. “We understand that from the beginning of the season. We control everything we do. We had the ability and the chances to beat Virginia and Maryland and Hopkins. I don’t look at it as something that’s frustrating. You have your chances and have to make the most of them.”

Truly Useless Note of the Week

Georgetown coach Dave Urick needed his computer-savvy son and assistant coach, Scott, to load WVBR-FM 93.5 on the Internet — http://www.wbvr.com/wbvr.ram if you’re interested — so pops could get his Cornell-SU fix Wednesday.

“I listened to the last quarter and a half of the Syracuse game,” the elder Urick said. “The announcers were just excellent. Listening, I could visualize the game. It sounded to me like Cornell just took it to Syracuse. They weren’t trying to pussyfoot around or kill the clock.”

We bid adieu …

With Corrigan. The Gipper he ain’t: “It’s the NCAA Tournament that’s on the line. Why should I have to motivate them to play hard?”

Published on April 15, 2002 at 12:00 pm