BARTELS HALL—After not losing last night, Cornell men’s basketball team has maintained its perfect no-loss record into the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

“Honestly, if you’d asked me in February I would have thought we’d have lost by now,” admitted guard James Banket ‘24. “If you had told me we would be undefeated going into the Elite Eight, I would have called you crazy. Just look at all the teams who have lost in this tournament: Princeton, UCLA, Alabama. All those teams had way better records than we did. But look at us now; it’s three rounds into March Madness and we haven’t lost a single game. ” 

Cornell’s undefeated streak may come as a surprise to many sports pundits around the world; their recent loss in the Ivy League tournament had many analysts convinced that Cornell would lose as soon as it played in the national championship tournament. However, some statisticians stated that Cornell’s record instilled confidence in them that the Big Red would not lose.

“Just look at the stats, Cornell was never going to lose,” explained Data Science major James Bool ‘25. “The historic patterns alone prove that. Cornell hasn’t lost in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament since 2010, when they lost to top-seeded Kentucky, a team with DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall, and Eric Bledsoe. In fact, they have never lost to anything lower than a #3 seed. With a streak like that, you couldn’t make me bet against them.”

At time of writing, sports books have given Cornell near-zero odds to lose in this tournament.

OLIN LIBRARY—What would have been a typical evening for late-night studier Matt Kippler ‘24 took an unexpected turn for the heartfelt after he overheard a moment of beautiful catharsis between Lucas Braht ‘25 and his estranged father occuring at the desk directly to his right. Though Kippler failed to submit the internship application he had spent three weeks working on, he learned a valuable lesson about the power of family.

“I haven’t felt this touched since I watched Puss and Boots: The Last Wish,” stated a thoughtful Kippler. “I’ve been so caught up with materialistic goals. That internship application was supposed to line up my junior summer internship, and then that was supposed to be my return offer out of college, but who cares. What really matters is the bond between a dad and his boy, that’s real.” Kippler reflected on his relationship with his own father, who he had last spoken to roughly two weeks earlier, requesting money for a plane ticket that would allow to skip his hometown layover and fly direct to Miami Beach. “I should call him.” 

Braht’s lengthy discussion with his father was overheard by a large portion of the library’s population, particularly the moment when he erupted from his chair, flinging it into the student behind him, and shouted “YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME!” While many students were initially perturbed by Braht’s apparent misuse of library facilities, they were quickly swayed by the immense progress he was making in his relationship. Nearby library patrons were inspired, following Braht’s lead by FaceTiming their long distance partners, scheduling doctor’s appointments, and crying even more than usual.

“Everything happened so unexpectedly,” explained Braht. “One minute I’m sitting at my desk, trying to remember whether diestrus comes before or after metestrus, and then I think: I oughtta give my dad a real piece of my mind. He and I hadn’t talked in about two years after I killed his pet chameleon. I was just gonna give him a quick scream through the phone, nothing too distracting. But as I heard him talk, I felt like I could finally get through to him. I thought about walking thirty seconds to the door, but I knew that I had to capitalize on the moment.”

Kippler was so struck by the call that he called his own father from Olin the following night. Tragically, his public rehashing of 20 years of angst was cut short when another student told him to “shut the fuck up dude. We’re in a library.”

UPSON HALL—In a brazen display of ignorance and disrespect for different cultures, electrical engineering student Paula Roberson ‘24 wore overalls to class Thursday despite having no affiliation with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“To so clearly copy the customs of another college, while making no acknowledgement of the deep personal and spiritual meanings of the clothing, is abhorrently ignorant,” remarked CALS student Jenna Liu ‘25. “You don’t see us CALS students walking around in tuxedos after coiffing our hair for four hours. Why? Because we know that these traditions are sacred to the Hotelies, even if they might seem pompous and conceited to the rest of us. The engineering students should treat us with the same respect.”

Sources indicated that while Roberson’s decision to wear overalls sparked initial unrest, tensions heightened when onlookers noticed her Carhartt beanie and Blundstone boots—clear and unequivocal apery of CALS culture. Some also suggested her earthy odor vaguely recalling cow manure could be another insensitive gesture, but this allegation remains debated due to the notoriously foul aromas of engineering students. Tensions truly came to a head, however, when Roberson wandered from the relative safety of the Engineering Quad to a hostile Trillium during peak lunch hour.

“Wearing our clothing is one thing, but to enter our house of worship—and at the hour of our holy communion, no less—is more than a step too far,” said Liu. “Showing no understanding of our ontology, Paula didn’t even glance at the quesadilla line before beelining it for the pasta station. The fucking pasta! The nerve of some people.”

At press time, the communal anger on the Ag Quad threatened to boil over into a full-blown riot after Roberson snuck “y’all” into a sentence without so much as a snicker or an eye-roll.

Upon entering my 11:20 class, BIOMS 2210: Introduction to Infectious Disease, I was immediately met with a chilling sensation. Something was wrong. Though I had arrived only two minutes before the lecture was to begin, the typically crowded lecture hall remained largely empty. I scanned the seats for my friends but found none. Deep in thought, I took a seat in the back corner.

Had class been canceled? No, that couldn’t be; the professor was already staging by the podium. The weather wasn’t nearly nice or shitty enough to justify skipping. Still, the professor appeared unperturbed, even as the nominal start time came and went while precious few stragglers—all strangers—snuck in. What was going on?

I would not have to wait long for an answer. After a brief remark on the newfound roominess of the lecture hall, the professor switched to a slide that made everything immediately, horrifyingly clear: the prelim grade distribution. I gasped as the pieces fell into place: the conversations about the exam’s difficulty; the griping about the long lay-off between the test and the release of grades; and, above all, the sickening left-skewed histogram sneering at me from the projected screen.

My friends had gotten their grades last night. They were on the left side of that chart. They dropped the class. They dropped the class. And I… I never checked my email. But there was no use now: the drop deadline had passed. My fate was sealed.

I stifled a sob. How was I to survive alone, more exposed than ever? I would have to make new friends, to become inured to the awkwardness of chatting with strangers. Brian—God, Brian, how I hope he’s in a better place now—mentioned knowing “some chick who sits over there.” Perhaps I could seek her out, unless she also…

I sighed, shaking off those morbid thoughts. It was a new world, and I was determined to survive, to rage against the hellscape in which I found myself. I would persevere, against all odds, and emerge triumphant (or at least with a grade above a D). The road would not be easy, but the human will has faced far worse and lived to tell the tale. I will live to tell the tale (to future prospective enrollees on RateMyProfessor).

Or I could take a W on my transcript. Yeah, that might be better in the long run.

There are two things in this world I love: drinking a nice pint of Guinness and giving the bird to the Republic of Ireland. So, when a friend of mine informed me that every time I slam back a brewski in a plastic four-leaf clover glass today I am disrespecting Irish culture, I did a little jig.

There are a wealth of opinions about St. Patrick’s Day and cultural appropriation. Some people think celebrating this overcommercialized substance-abuse festival is cultural appropriation, and to that I say a hearty yes. St. Patrick’s Day is about a Catholic priest going full Nehebkau and booting every snake out of the island, and our pub-crawling, green-shirt wearing mockery is exactly what they deserve. 

Let me start off by pointing out how dumb that story is. He kicked the snakes out of Ireland you say? The snakes, really? Pray tell, how the fuck did snakes get there? How did they leave? Did they swim? If so, good for the fucking snakes. I wouldn’t want to listen to some preachy Irishman blabber on in that shitty weather either. People should really learn from history that nothing really wants to stay in Ireland. Not snakes, not healthy potatoes, and certainly not the English. They’re hanging on to Northern Ireland by a thread, they’ve clearly never given a shit about Ireland, and somehow these Ulster loyalist fucks stayed kissing Thatcher’s decomposing boots even as it almost lost them access to the European Common Market. You wouldn’t catch me dead in that half-a-country for all the Guinness in the world. 

But beyond all that, these dipshits are so protective over the world’s most embarrassingly meager excuse for a “culture.” Guinness? Boiled cabbage? I thought it was impossible to out-bland the English but they managed it. And their best music all comes from Boston anyways. So no, I am not going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day the way the Irish intended. I am going to get shit-faced, listen to some Dropkick Murphies, and tell everyone in spitting distance about my great-great-great uncle who came here from Ireland. 

By the time I’m done with this holiday, no one outside your dumb island will bother associating with it or your cloudy-ass country.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In light of reader complaints, we felt it necessary to include the context that the author of this piece grew up in Liverpool.

GOLDWIN SMITH HALL- This Thursday, throughout the Temple of Zeus atrium, cell phones buzzed with the announcement email of an exciting new opportunity for students: Cornell Taking Day and a doubling of students’ tuition.

“At first I thought Cornell was taking away something important like good toilet paper in the bathrooms or the sexually gratifying statue of Ezra Cornell on the arts quad,” commented junior Lotty Cash. “But then I saw that it was just doubling the ridiculous amount of money we already pay and I relaxed. I mean, what does having enough money for food or housing matter if they don’t expand the engineering quad into my collegetown apartment?”

Cash wasn’t the only person excited about the new Cornell Taking Day. Her friend Rich Guy designed a happy lil Touchdown swimming in cash logo for a Taking Days contest. His prize was an additional $50,000 jump in his tuition dollars. Dean of Financial Aid Martin Moullah also expressed his excitement about the new school-wide holiday by taking away all his employee’s vacation days.

“Taking Day was really a more forceful response to Giving Day,” explained Moullah. “We thought that 50 emails every two minutes wasn’t an aggressive enough donation campaign so we decided to just require donations from all students. What do they even need the money for anyways? I want a pony and by god these kids are gonna pay for it!”

At the end of the day Moullah was observed doing a live-action photoshoot of Guy’s logo by confiscating the Touchdown costume as “tuition money” and laying in a pile of all the money earned from Taking Day.